LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - B&M European Value Retail warned 2022 UK revenues would be lower against tough comparatives as it reported better than expected annual profits driven by soaring sales during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The company, which remained fully open during the pandemic as it sold "essential" food, said adjusted core earnings rose 83% to £626.4m on the back of a 26% rise in revenue to £4.8bn. Statutory pre-tax profits rose 108% to £525m with the final month of its fiscal year to March 30 the strongest in its history.

"Trading continues to be volatile at a weekly and product category level, in particular since the recent easing of lockdown restrictions. This is likely to remain the case for the whole of full-year 2022, as the business annualises against the very strong comparatives throughout last year," the company said on Thursday.

"As such, the B&M UK business expects to see a decline in like-for-like revenues in full year 2022 compared to 2021, but is focused on delivering a healthy two-year LFL versus 2020."

The company said like-for-like sales in the first nine weeks of fiscal 2022 were down 1% year on year.

A final dividend of 13p a share was declared for a full-year payout of 17p compared with 8.1p a year earlier.

In France, where the company runs the Babou chain, a further six-week national lockdown began on April 3 for , closing many of its stores.

"Since restrictions were lifted on May 19 ... there has been a pleasing recovery, with sales performance again being driven by the success of product ranges sourced from the B&M supplier base in Asia. Additionally, the business took advantage of the lockdown period to accelerate its conversion programme of the Babou fascia, with 73 of the 104 stores in France now trading as B&M."

B&M said it was too early to predict revenue and profit and while group gross margin is likely to revert to more normalised levels it would work to maintain adjusted earnings margin higher than historical levels.

"The last year has been an exceptional one. Looking ahead, there are many uncertainties as society slowly emerges from lockdown and trading patterns are likely to be unpredictable for much of the year," said " chief executive Simon Arora.

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