DGAP-News

GERRY WEBER's realignment programme proceeding to plan in FY 2015/16 - Seite 4

Sales performance in 2015/16

The market environment for the clothing retail sector remains challenging. Like-for-like sales of the German fashion retail sector were down by 3% to 4% on the previous year in GERRY WEBER's financial year 2015/16. The GERRY WEBER Group was unable to isolate itself from this market environment. As a result, Group revenues declined by 2.2% to EUR 900.8 million in FY 2015/16 (previous year: EUR 920.8 million). The GERRY WEBER Core brands (GERRY WEBER, TAIFUN, SAMOON) contributed EUR 717.6 million and HALLHUBER contributed EUR 183.2 million to total Group revenues. The 10.9% decline in Core brand revenues was not fully offset by the gratifying 17.7% increase in HALLHUBER's revenues.

Sales revenues of the GERRY WEBER Core segment were down by 10.9% on the previous year, which is attributable to a reduction of both Core Retail and Wholesale revenues. Sales revenues of the GERRY WEBER Core Retail segment dropped from EUR 440.3 million to EUR 419.2 million in FY 2015/16. The decline in Core Retail revenues was attributable not only to the 75 stores closed in the context of the FIT4GROWTH programme but mainly also to the 7.6% drop in like-for-like revenues. Sales revenues of the Wholesale segment fell by a strong 18.3% to EUR 298.4 million. Just like GERRY WEBER, our Wholesale partners are also affected by the continued difficult market environment. By contrast, the online business of HALLHUBER and GERRY WEBER Core showed a positive trend, with total online revenues of EUR 43.9 million up by approx. 22% on the previous year.

Earnings performance in 2015/16

As a result of more effective merchandise management, in combination with an optimised pricing policy, the consolidated gross margin improved from 58.7% to 60.4%.

The decline in Core revenues, the still low profitability of HALLHUBER's revenues and, most importantly, the extraordinary charges arising from the FIT4GROWTH programme had an adverse impact on the profitability of the GERRY WEBER Group. Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) including all extraordinary charges amounted to EUR 77.3 million in FY 2015/16, compared to EUR 115.8 million in the previous year (previous year excl. extraordinary effects). The EBITDA margin declined from 12.6% to 8.6%.