This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
SOLOMON Lew’s Premier Investments has continued to outperform most of its retailing peers in the pandemic, and is expecting its almost double its full year profits on the back of strong online sales, control over its supply chain, and favourable rent agreements with landlords.
The owner of Peter Alexander, Smiggle, Just Jeans and Portmans recorded year-to-date global sales 70% above the COVID-afflicted same period of last year, and 15.8% above 2019, helped by strong trade throughout the Easter school holidays and Mother’s Day periods, and with all of its Australian and New Zealand stores open.
It said that subject to macro-economic trading conditions remaining strong, and no further significant government mandated store closures or significant social movement restrictions, Premier full year EBIT to be in the range of $340 million to $360 million, representing a mammoth increase of between 82% and 92% last year’s result, and of between 103% and 115% on 2019.
“The strategic decision taken last year by the chairman and I to build our supply chain and significantly invest in wanted inventory for Easter, April school holidays, Mother’s Day and the winter season has ensured we are in stock, delivering strong sales and gross margin growth across all our brands,” executive director and CEO Mark McInness said.
“The group has successfully enabled customers to shop seamlessly either online or in-store during the COVID-19 health crisis. This has been achieved through the long-term strategic investments made in our online capability combined with our ability to reach mutual agreements with landlords to appropriately rebase rents.”
Combative billionaire chairman Solomon Lew has been at the vanguard of tenants pushing for rent relief throughout the pandemic.
Gross margin expansion of 380 basis points was recorded over both the same period in 2019 and 2020.
The company last month paid back the net benefit of $15.6 million in JobKeeper payments out of the total $70 million it received.
