Revenues top £100m at Beaverbrooks

BEAVERBROOKS, the North West jewellery retailer, saw revenues rise to just shy of £100m last year.

In the year to March turnover increased by 6% to £99.8m but charitable giving once again pushed the St Annes-based group to a loss.

In 2012-13 Beaverbrooks pumped £5.4m into its own charitable trust. This year it gave £100,000 to the trust and £1m to a social care charity called the Federation of Jewish Services – enough to leave the company with a pre-tax loss of just under £1m, double last year’s £486,000.

The group, which is still controlled by the founding Adlestone family, has been long-committed to charitable works and routinely features in lists of the best companies to work for.

Despite the sales growth, the directors were pessimistic in their report. They said: “In common with many other retailers, there is still a great deal of uncertainty concerning both consumer confidence and the rate of recovery of the UK economy in the forthcoming year and the directors are of the opinion that the next financial year will again be very challenging.”

Since the year end the company has opened two new shops and closed one in Cardiff, leaving it with 65.