Difficult conditions for Findel Education dampened positive performance across the Group
Companies: Studio Retail Group plc
Shares in Findel fell 5% as the market opened on Thursday after the small-cap retailer told investors it expected pre-tax profit to be slightly below the bottom range of consensus (c.£21m) in its FY results in June.
In a pre-close statement, the AIM-listed company said it had seen strong sales growth and decent like-for-like sales growth of around 10% across the Group, but that profits were weighed down by difficult market conditions in its Education division.
Consensus is expecting around £21m in pre-tax profits and a normalised EPS of 22.8p from the Group, down 15.5% on FY16's 27p/share. Despite falling as the market opened, shares rallied shortly afterwards returning to marginally below Wednesday's close.
The Group's largest business Express Gifts performed well, with strong growth in revenue and customer numbers. Sales jumped 14%, product sales jumped 16%, and customer numbers grew 21%.
However, strong performance at Express Gifts was offset by difficult market conditions for educational resources at Findel Education, with LFL sales declining by 4%.
Findel Education has continued to see difficult market conditions for educational resources and expects to see full-year sales on a like-for-like basis* declining by around 4%.
The money set aside to refund customers after flawed historic financial services products, first announced at the end of March, has increased £3.3m to £14.3m. The Group also announced that it is relocating its offices which will reduce ongoing costs but will cost £8m as an exceptional item due to the firm recognising an onerous lease provision.
