Dunelm pleased with start to new trading year

16th Sep 2010 07:43

Out of town homewares retailer Dunelm has posted profits slightly ahead of expectations following sharply higher like for like sales, and announced a new CEO.Analysts had pencilled in a figure of £76.2m for pre-tax profits, but the company topped that with profits of £76.8m, up from £53.5m last year. The performance was all the more impressive because this year's figure covers a 52-week period (to 3 July), whereas the previous year's period had an extra week in it.Total sales rose to £492.8m from £423.8m the year before, with like for like sales up 8.0%. Gross margin improved by 1.9 percentage points to 46.8% from 44.9%.Cash at the end of the financial year was £15.4m, down from £24.0m a year earlier. During the course of the year the company returned £43.2m of surplus capital to shareholders in addition to dividend payments. "Whilst we are clearly operating in challenging economic conditions, and we expect to see continuing pressure on consumer spending, performance in the early weeks of our new financial year has been pleasing," revealed chief executive Will Adderley."We remain cautious about the outlook for UK consumer spending and in turn the impact on the homewares market. However, we are very confident that Dunelm will continue to grow its share and become an even more significant player over the coming period," chairman Geoff Cooper said.Adderley said today he will step down as chief executive after 15 years in the role and be replaced by Halfords finance boss Nick Wharton.He'll give up the top job in February next year to become executive deputy chairman. Wharton joins as CEO designate on 1 December.A final dividend of 5p has been proposed, making the full year dividend 2p higher at 8p than last year's 6p pay-out.