Record results for confident DFS
YORKSHIRE furniture manufacturer and retailer DFS has announced record results today.
The Doncaster-headquartered company reported record sales up 7.4% to £670.8m (2012: £624.7m) and EBITDA up 4.9% to £86m (2012: £82m) in its financial results for the year ended July 27 2013.
DFS, which is is reportedly lining up a stock market flotation which would value the company at up to £1bn, said strong cash generation continues with year-end cash balances of £38m (2012: £27m) despite net expenditure on bond refinancing and shareholder dividends totalling £34.4m during the period, and said its expansion strategy is on track, with eight new stores opened during the year.
DFS chief executive officer, Ian Filby, said: “I am pleased to report another year of progress in which we again achieved record sales and profits and improved our market share in a challenging marketplace.
“This performance underlines once more the growing strength of the DFS brand and the success of our strategy to broaden our appeal, enhance our service and make our products more accessible to customers than ever before, both through new store openings and our expanding multichannel offer.
“The 4.9% increase in EBITDA for the year to £86m was after a further £2.6m investment in expansion of the business, including new store pre-opening and website re-launch costs.
“We opened a total of eight new stores during the year, including a second store in the Republic of Ireland. This increased our portfolio to 97 DFS stores at the year-end, in line with our plans.
“The business has an efficient capital structure going forward, following the successful refinancing through a £310m bond issue in March 2013, enabling us both to invest the cash we generate in further development of the business and to return surplus cash to our stakeholders.
“This year the unusually hot summer weather resulted in a decline in footfall and order intake over that period. This will be reflected in our results for the first three months of the current year, which traditionally make the smallest contribution of our four quarterly reporting periods to the full year results.”
DFS said important recent developments include signing a further long-term contract with a second major financial institution to provide a facility for its customers’ interest-free credit.
Filby added: “The performance of our new stores, new products, innovative
marketing and expanding multichannel offer enables us to remain confident that DFS will continue to deliver long-term profitable growth as the UK market leader in upholstered furniture.”
