Bargain-price clothes retailer preparing for April reopening

FASHION retailer Primark has plans in place to reopen its stores when restrictions are lifted in England – to the delight of shoppers.

The high street favourite has a store in Coopers Square shopping centre, Burton, which has been closed since the start of the latest lockdown was introduced at the beginning of the year.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel for those missing their fix of bargain clothes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed his road map out of lockdown as restrictions will start to ease in England on March 8.

If coronavirus levels stay low then more restrictions will be eased every five weeks until the end of June, he has said.

That means that non-essential retailers, including clothes shops, will be able to open during stage two of the lockdown plan.

Mr Johnson said that will come on April 12 at the earliest.

A Primark spokesman said: “Primark welcomes the news that we have a provisional opening date of April 12 for our stores in England.

“We know our customers will be thrilled and we can’t wait to welcome them back into our stores.

“Our priority will be to do that safely, building on all the lessons we have learnt across our European operations in the past year.”

Last month Primark owner Associated British Foods warned of a hit from lost retail sales of more than £1 billion if coronavirus lockdowns forced its stores to stay closed until the end of February. The budget fashion chain said 305 of its 389 shops around the world were currently shut, which was expected to cost it £1.05 billion in lost sales – up from the £650 million hit forecast at the end of December.

AB Foods – which has 190 shops in the UK – said it now expected to see half-year underlying earnings wiped out, with the group forecasting to be “broadly break-even” against profits of £441 million a year earlier.

But it said it could be facing a £1.85 billion sales impact if its entire store estate had to close and remain shut until the end of March, knocking profits by a further £300 million.

Primark has already seen £540 million in lost retail sales from store closures due to coronavirus restrictions in its key Christmas quarter, with sales slumping 30 per cent in the 16 weeks to January 2.

The group saw trade badly impacted by the November lockdown in England and restrictions across Europe, with no online business to fall back on.

Current shop closures account for around 76 per cent of its retail selling space.

The group said it had been able to offset some of the trading impact with overhead costs cut by 25 per cent due to store closures.

AB Foods said at the time: “The impact of store closures on Primark’s performance is significant.

“We now expect full year sales and adjusted operating profit for Primark to be somewhat lower than last year.”

The group said trading was strong while stores were open, with like-for-like sales declines running at 14 per cent in the 16-week period.

Stores at retail parks accessible by car were lifted on a year earlier, but high street and shopping centre sites were badly impacted by the pandemic.

Despite the woes, the chain opened another five shops over its festive quarter and pledged to “continue to expand retail selling space” with another 15 new sites planned across the UK, Europe and the US for the year ahead.

Finance director John Bason told the PA news agency the group would not turn its back on the high street, despite the shift away from town centre shopping amid the pandemic.

He said: “There probably will be more home working but a lot of people will want to come back to office working, tourism will come back… but it will take time.

“When we’re through all this, people will want to go on holiday, they’ll want to have a party and they’ll want to shop at Primark.”

The group has so far avoided hefty job cuts in the crisis and Mr Bason said there were no plans for large-scale redundancies.

Better-than-expected trading elsewhere in the group is helping offset the retail trading difficulties, with 16-week sales growth of seven per cent for the groceries business, six per cent for its sugar arm, 10 per cent for agriculture and three per cent for the ingredients division.

This saw overall group revenues fall 13 per cent over the period.