Sports retailers ‘confident’ despite slow moving market

FOOTASYLUM bosses remain “confident” about the future despite a sluggish retail environment.

In its first full-year financial report since its listing to the London Stock Exchange last November, the Rochdale headquartered fashion and footwear retailer said turnover in the 12 months to the end of February rose 33 per cent to £194.8m, on a 12 per cent rise in adjusted earnings.

Online sales were also up 41 per cent, accounting for 30 per cent of total revenue

But pre-tax profit was down to £1.9m compared to £8.1m last year due to costs associated with the company’s IPO.

Chief executive Clare Nesbitt said: “We’re happy with the performance and it’s where we wanted to be.

“Part of the reason we did the IPO is that we really wanted to fund our investment in our infrastructure to take us on to the next stage of growth.

“We’ve already opened up an additional floor in our head office.

“We opened an additional warehouse at Stakehill Industrial site, we also opened a new design studio in Gorton, they were the key areas of investment.

“In terms of our stores, we have already identified the need to upsize some of our key sites, as well as open new ones.

“There has been ongoing work in our Manchester store and that’s because when we first opened, it had a tight core range of footwear and apparel, but more recently we have been able to add women and junior apparel into that.

“Our old spaces don’t allow us to fit everything in anymore and this will allow us to really put forward the right proposition instore which reflect our wider online offering.”

During the financial year, the company opened 10 new shops, taking the total to 65, it refitted two stores and upsized seven.

It has continued investment in the footasylum.com website and further investment in other online platforms with the launch of an own brand website, and apps for Footasylum, Kings Will Dream and SEVEN.