LONDON (Alliance News) - UK home shopping and education business Findel PLC reported Wednesday an increase in both profits and revenues for its last financial year, which it said was driven by its two biggest businesses - Express Gifts and Findel Education.
The group reported a pretax profit of GBP3.3 million for the financial year ended March 28, compared with a GBP482,000 profit the year before, boosted by a 4.8% increase in revenues to GBP514.7 million from GBP491.2 million a year earlier.
The group said its financial improvement was driven by its education division, Findel Education, and by its largest segment, direct mail-order business Express Gifts. It said trading so far in the current financial year has been encouraging.
"The strength of our two largest businesses give us confidence that further growth in profitability and reductions in legacy core net debt can be achieved," the company said in a statement.
Express Gifts saw a profit boost from a 9.6% rise in sales and an increase in customer numbers.
Findel Education, which Findel said has now turned a corner after a number of years of decline, saw sales growth of 6.5% with strong growth in the division' operating profit.
"The business is maintaining its focus on performance with a number of ongoing projects aimed at improving service whilst reducing costs with the aim of achieving peer-comparable returns," Findel said.
However, Findel's Kitbag sports retail business widened its losses after poor trading in the first half of the year, and sales within Findel's network marketing business Kleeneze fell by 5.5%, partially as a result of the number of active distributors falling by 27% during the year.
"Kitbag has experienced a difficult year ,and the financial performance has deteriorated. Management actions continue to address this unsatisfactory situation. Kleeneze has also had difficulties, and we are engaging more closely with senior distributor leaders to address this," the company said.
Findel said that its turnaround plans for the Kitbag business, which include contract renegotiations and operational changes, together with the major events scheduled for the summer of 2014 such as the World Cup and the Ryder Cup will help the business, and said that current trading for the business is within its range of expectations during a typically volatile period.
Findel shares were trading 3.9% higher at 257.75 pence Wednesday morning.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; rowenaharrisdoughty@alliancenews.com; @rharrisdoughty
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