Food
Bedding retailer, Adairs, announced it will continue its international expansion next year and will roll out new stores in New Zealand and launch an international website.
Mark Ronan, managing director and CEO, stated after the successful opening of their store in New Zealand, the company is looking into opening up to two additional stores in the country.
Ronan said the company is also looking to deliver an international website in 2018.
“Adairs has considerable opportunity to grow inside and outside of Australia and we will continue to assess these opportunities over the coming year,” he said.
Ronan said Adairs will also continue to invest in their product team by adding resources to ensure that they “can deliver great product to customers.”
“As I reflect on the lessons of the last 12 months, it has served to enhance my confidence that our strategy is sound, and our results will be most influenced by our successful execution of this strategy, rather than matters beyond our control,” he said. “‘Product, product and product’ refers to our product differentiation, range optimisation and merchandise planning strategy. Adairs is a product and design led business. Great product is critical to our success.”
The company has posted a seven per cent increase in total sales for FY17, like-for-like sales, however, finished down 1.4 per cent.
The company’s online sales continued to grow with investments in this area seeing second half sales up 41 per cent on the prior year. Despite growing total sales, Adairs’ NPAT result was well down on the prior year, with the large majority of this decline coming in the first half.
Michael Butler, chairman of Adairs also addressed the ASIC infringement notice, denying the allegation asserting the retailer “has complied with its continuous disclosure obligations at all times.”
“Nevertheless, your Bboard considered that it was in the best interests of Adairs to pay the penalty of $66,000 to enable the management team to focus on the operations of the business and avoid the anticipated cost and management diversion of defending this allegation,” he said.
“Adairs is committed to keeping our shareholders fully informed.”
