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(Alliance News) Shoe Zone PLC on Tuesday posted improved annual earnings for the year that ended October 1.
Shares in the footwear retailer were up 7.3% at 220.00 pence each on Tuesday morning in London.
Revenue rose 31% to GBP156.2 million from GBP119.1 million. In particular, store revenue increased 47% to GBP129.8 million from GBP88.6 million the year before.
Pretax profit climbed 43% to GBP13.6 million from GBP9.5 million, as profit from operations rose to GBP14.7 million from GBP11.0 million the year before.
"Shoe Zone had a very positive year due to trading for the full 52 weeks, strong trading over our key back to school period and due to the incredible hard work from our teams. These increases are primarily due to the increased revenue and resultant gross profit generated in a normalised trading period post pandemic", it explains.
It declared a final dividend of 3.3 pence per share, compared to none the year prior. Shoe Zone also declared a 8.2p special dividend.
Shoe Zone further said it started a share buy-back programme, buying back 955,813 shares for GBP1.7 million cash.
Looking ahead, the company said it continues to "accelerate our store refit and relocation programme and to drive our digital strategy on the back of these solid set of results".
By Xindi Wei, Alliance News reporter
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