COLEFAX GROUP PLC
(“Colefax” or the “Group”)
Half Year Results
for the six months ended 31 October 2020
Colefax is an international designer and distributor of furnishing fabrics & wallpapers and owns a leading interior decorating business. The Group trades under five brand names, serving different segments of the soft furnishings marketplace; these are Colefax and Fowler, Cowtan & Tout, Jane Churchill, Manuel Canovas and Larsen.
Highlights
- Strong recovery in core Fabric Division sales following the lockdowns in force at the start of the period
- Group sales down 14.0% to £36.97 million (2019: £42.98 million) and by 12.8% on a constant currency basis
- Group profit before tax up 17% to £3.37 million (2019: £2.88 million) mainly due to costs deferred by delayed new product launches
- Earnings per share increased by 18% to 28.2p (2019: 23.9p)
- Fabric Division sales down 7.8% to £33.60 million (2019: £36.50 million) and by 6.3% on a constant currency basis
- US down by 5.9%, UK down by 11.7%, Europe down by 2.0%
- Decorating Division sales down 60% to £2.1 million (2019: £5.2 million) due to coronavirus restrictions
- loss of £687,000 (2019: profit of £255,000)
- Cash increased by £8.4m to £19.9 million (30 April 2020: £11.5 million) partly due to delayed investment in new product
David Green, Chairman, said:
“ The Group's performance over the last six months has shown resilience in a trading environment where most of our major markets were emerging from varying degrees of lockdown. The easing of lockdowns resulted in renewed interest in home related spending and we believe this is the reason for a sales recovery which has exceeded our initial expectations.
“In the last two months, restrictions have been re-imposed to varying degrees in both the UK and our export markets but so far, the impact on sales is much less than we experienced during the first lockdown. Brexit has added an additional layer of cost and complexity to our European business which we will try to mitigate as far as possible. We are cautiously optimistic about future prospects especially as 62% of our sales in the Fabric Division are in the US, where sales have been very resilient during the pandemic”.
“ The Group has a strong balance sheet and we will continue to invest with confidence in our portfolio of luxury brands and our worldwide distribution network”.