Listed furniture retailer says it is well placed to ride out second lockdown
DFS Furniture says that as of today all its physical showrooms in England, the Republic of Ireland and Wales, are temporarily closed, which together represent 181 of its 208 showrooms across the estate.
Under current COVID-19 legislation, in England the Doncaster-headquartered company’s 169 showrooms are closed for four weeks from today to 2 December.
Its seven Welsh showrooms are due to re-open on Monday 9 November, following 16 days of closure. And the firm’s five Irish showrooms are due to reopen on 1 December, following six weeks of closure.
A DFS spokesman said: “Our websites across all brands and territories remain open for business and are performing well.
“Based on our previous experience of lockdown we expect our online business to improve further.
“This will be supported by the temporary transfer of showroom colleagues to other areas of the business, including remotely assisting customers with web purchases.
“Notwithstanding the showroom restrictions, we continue to manufacture, deliver and install orders safely into customer homes in all territories.
“Given the current very strong order bank levels, and the delivery lead times we are therefore operating at, we do not expect that this period of showroom closure will materially impact revenues and profitability for the first 26 weeks to 27 December 2020.
“Furthermore, our experience of the prior lockdown periods was that substantially all order intake disrupted during the lockdown period was either deferred until showrooms reopened or was captured online.”
DFS says its balance sheet position remains robust. It notes that thanks to strong recent trading it currently holds a net cash position, with access to over £300m of available cash and undrawn bank facilities.
