Findel reports strong sales growth

FINDEL, the home shopping, education and healthcare products supplier, says sales have increased 4.5% since October, and that it is “encouraged” with the progress it is making on a number of fronts.

The listed company said its strong sales performance was led by Express Gifts – the largest business in the group – which had its best Christmas in four years.

Sales at Accrington-based Express since October 1 are up 11.1% on last year as the business wooed new customers after adopting a new approach to pricing.

Findel, which was formerly headquartered in Yorkshire before relocating its head office to Hyde, Greater Manchester, said Express Gifts has grown its active customer base by more than 5% in the last year, and this business would deliver a “strong operating profit performance for the year”.

Trading at catalogue cleaning products business Kleeneze has also improved, with an ongoing sales decline slowing from 2.5% in the eight weeks to November 25 to 1.2% in the 15 weeks to January 17.

Kitbag – the football business now run by Andy Anson, the former Manchester United commercial director and more recently head of England’s unsuccessful World Cup bid team – saw sales increase by 2% over the period.

This increase came at a price, however, as “significant levels of promotional activity” were required due to both the general weak trading environment and “the relatively poorer situation of some sporting partners this season compared to last year”.

Findel said this had hit gross margin, and added: “We continue to anticipate that Kitbag will report a significant operating loss in the second half of the year.”

During what has been the normally quiet period for the Education Supplies division, the company said that positive trends reported in its interim results had continued, with growth in both its schools supplies and international brands offset by weakness in its curricular brands.

The healthcare division is performing well, with sales for the period since the half-year 12.1% ahead of 2010/11, although a portion of this growth came at “very low margins due to the structure of certain contracts”.

Across the whole group, year-to-date sales are 1.6% ahead of the prior year.

The company said: “Overall, we are encouraged by the progress we are making in a number of areas, building on a strong performance from our largest business, Express Gifts, in a difficult economic and retail environment.

“The board continues to believe that the group will deliver improved results in the second half versus the prior year, which in turn will be the start of a trend leading to improved shareholder returns over the medium term.”