Warehouse posts profit, axes dividend
THE Warehouse Group has posted a $44.5 million profit in the 2020 financial year.
The company, which operates The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Noel Leeming, Torpedo7 and TheMarket.co.nz would have made a loss without the
$67.7 million it received in wage subsidies.
It will not pay out a dividend, despite having a net cash position of
$168.1 million.
The preliminary unaudited $44.5 million net profit after tax in the 12 months to August 2 is a 32% decrease on its earnings in FY19. It would have made a loss of
$4.3 million without financial support from the Government.
The group posted sales revenue of $3.2 billion in the year, up 3.3% on the prior year. About $1.5 billion of that was generated in its second half of the year; sales were up 4.1% in the period.
The Warehouse said that ‘‘given the loss prior to the wage subsidy, as well as the continued uncertainty around economic activity and trading outlook’’, its directors had decided not to pay a dividend.
‘‘Subject to trading over the critical Q2 period and any further Alert Level restrictions and adverse economic impacts of Covid19, the group hopes to return to paying dividends in line with its dividend policy for FY21,’’ it said in a NZX statement.
It posted unaudited adjusted net profit after tax of $80.7 million, including adjustments for unusual items of $36.3 million, up 9% on last year.
The group will post its audited results on October 15.
Last week, The Warehouse Group defended laying off hundreds of workers just months after it took the wage subsidy.
It came under fire from both main political party leaders during a leaders’ debate, but justified the redundancies, saying its sales had plunged 67% because of the pandemic.
It is not known exactly how many staff the group has laid off since the onset of the pandemic as the process is ‘‘ongoing’’, but it has said that its proposed cuts would affect up to 750 jobs across all 92 of its stores.
It stands by its claims that the cuts had been ‘‘planned for some time’’ before Covid19. — The New Zealand Herald