South African furniture retailer Lewis’s full-year normalised headline earnings per share rose 23% to 654,4 cents, the company said on Monday.
The retailer said merchandise sales for the year to end-March were up 15,4% at R1,8-billion, with normalised operating profit 18% higher at R859,9-million.
”The group [Lewis] has produced another strong trading performance, with consistent sales growth throughout the year. There has been a further improvement in the quality of the debtors book and enhanced operating margin,” Lewis said in a statement.
The company said actual bad debts written off during the period rose 4%, with gross debtors up 13,5%.
”The doubtful debt provision is 11,4% of debtors as compared to 12,6% last year and indicates the high quality of the group’s credit risk management and the strength of the decentralised collection process,” Lewis said.
Lewis said it was confident of satisfactory sales and earnings growth in the year ahead.
Rival furniture retailer, JD Group earlier in the month said its first-half headline EPS rose 6,5%.
Retailers in Africa’s largest economy have benefited from record sales sparked by low interest rates, tax cuts and the emergence of a black middle class in recent years.
But three rate hikes in the past year have curtailed some of the exuberance. – Reuters