Financial Highlights
· Revenues up 4.8% to £356.3m (FY13: £340.1m)
· Like-for-like (LFL) sales -0.9% (FY13: 2.2%), with Q2 growth of 2.9%
· Gross margin up 90 basis points to 50.4%
· Operating profit growth of 4.5% to £62.0m (FY13: £59.3m)
· Profit before taxation up by 2.9% to £61.6m (FY13: £59.8m)
· Earnings per share (fully diluted) up 4.5% to 23.1p (FY13: 22.1p)
· Cash flows from operating activities after interest and tax of £75.1m (FY13: £63.4m)
· Interim dividend increased by 11.1% to 5.0p per share (FY13: 4.5p per share)
· Net cash of £26.4m at period end (FY13: £27.4m) after continued investment and dividends of £74.0m
Business Highlights
· Six new superstores opened in the period (including one relocation)
· Ten further sites committed, of which five (including two relocations) expected to open in the current year
· Continued growth in multi-channel sales (6% of revenues in Q2), with enhanced on-line offer
· Successful brand refresh and launch of first TV advertising campaign
Nick Wharton, Chief Executive, commented:
"Dunelm has delivered strong trading results over the period, and has made further important strategic progress.
"We have further strengthened our customer offer, particularly through service, and improved our infrastructure, whilst increasing scale through expanding the store portfolio and growing multi-channel. We have also invested significantly in increasing brand awareness, including through our first TV advertising campaign, and we are encouraged by the early results we have seen from this. I thank all my colleagues across Dunelm for their hard work in helping deliver these considerable achievements.
"Whilst we are cautious about consumer spending trends overall, the combination of a customer offer that continues to appeal to a broad spread of consumers, a significant new store growth opportunity and an exciting multi-channel agenda all provide us with a high degree of confidence in Dunelm's future growth prospects."
