Joules swings to loss, turnover declines by 12.5 percent

Joules Group revenue for fiscal year ending May 31, 2020 of 190.8 million pounds was down 12.5 percent. The company said in a statement that retail sales were 145.9 million pounds with store sales down 21.4 percent and e-commerce sales up 5 percent driven by strong sales through the group’s owned ecommerce channels, which increased 10.8 percent.

Wholesale sales were 42.7 million pounds, down 25.3 percent in the period. The company added that the group recorded a pre-tax loss of 2 million pounds compared to FY19 profit of 12.9 million pounds, while the statutory pre-tax loss was 1.4 million pounds. The company’s board decided to cancel its proposed interim dividend considering the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent macro-economic uncertainty.

Joules swings to loss

Commenting on the annual trading and outlook, Nick Jones, Chief Executive Officer of Joules, said: “We were quick to bolster our liquidity position, preserve cash and focus our trading online, and we are very encouraged by the more than 70 percent growth in e-commerce demand since the start of the new financial year as well as the performance of our stores since reopening.

“Whilst the Group’s financial results for FY20 were impacted by challenging external trading conditions in the UK throughout the year; the stock availability issue that, as previously reported, impacted our e-commerce sales over the Christmas trading period; as well as material Covid-19-related disruption during the final quarter.”

The company further said that after the first nine weeks of FY21, e-commerce demand was up more than 70 percent on the comparable period in prior year. The company’s all stores now re-opened with overall performance ahead of expectations. The company is in a strong financial position with net-cash of 5.4 million pounds and liquidity headroom of 54 million pounds at 2 August 2020.

Picture:Joules via Hudson Sandler