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LONDON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Britain's B&M, whose
stores sell everything from furniture to electricals to food,
said its sales growth slowed in the key Christmas quarter due to
a tough market and a decision not to engage in early discounting
activity.
The London-listed retailer said on Friday like-for-like
sales in its core B&M UK business rose 0.3% in the 13 weeks to
Dec. 28, its fiscal third quarter. That compares to first half
growth of 3.7%.
Its shares fell 6% in early trading.
"Cumulatively, B&M UK has achieved +2.3% like-for-like sales
growth during the financial year to date, albeit with a slower
performance than anticipated during the run up to Christmas,"
said Chief Executive Simon Arora.
He highlighted the backdrop "of a difficult UK retail
environment with reduced shopper footfall and political
uncertainty."
A raft of trading updates this week have shown UK retailers
struggled for sales growth in the run-up to
Christmas.
For B&M, which has a full name of B&M European Value Retail,
overall group revenue rose 9.3% on a constant currency basis
over the quarter.
It said it had seen a positive start to January trading and
looked forward to 2020 with confidence.
The group trades from 657 stores in the UK operating as B&M
and 295 Heron Foods stores. It also has 96 stores in Germany,
primarily operating as Jawoll and 100 Babou stores in France.
In November, B&M wrote down the value of the loss-making
Jawoll unit and put it under review.
It said on Friday that review was ongoing.
Shares in B&M, up 28% over the last year prior to Friday's
update, closed Thursday at 397.2 pence, valuing the business at
3.98 billion pounds ($5.2 billion) - more that Marks & Spencer's
stock market value.
($1 = 0.7659 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Kate Holton)
Marks & Spencer (MKS)