United Carpets makes marginal progress in first half

16th Dec 2016 09:05

(ShareCast News) - Specialist retail carpet and floor covering retail chain United Carpets Group announced its interim results for the six months to 30 September on Friday, with network sales marginally up to £27.5m from £27.1m.The AIM-traded company's revenue was £10.2m, down from £10.4m, although like for like sales increased by 2.1%Operating profit increased 9.1% to £0.64m, and profit before tax was up 8.8%, also to to £0.64m.Earnings per share were 0.66p, an increase of 8.2%.Net funds at period end stood at £1.8m, up from £1.6m on 31 March.The board declared an interim dividend of 0.13p per share payable on 20 January 2017, a slight increase on the 0.125p dividend declared at the same time last year.Since period end, United Carpets said like for like sales continued to be positive against tough comparatives."Notwithstanding a fairly challenging backdrop, the good momentum from last year has continued into the first half of the current financial year with trading performance proving robust," said chief executive Paul Eyre."From a smaller store base we have largely maintained revenues and continued to improve Group profitability reflecting the growing quality of the store portfolio together with the careful management of costs."Eyre said demand for a good value, high quality flooring proposition remained reasonable and the group's bed proposition was increasingly making a good contribution."United Carpets is well placed to deliver results in line with management expectations for the year overall."