Dunelm unveils robust results

15th Sep 2011 07:16

Homewares retailer Dunelm Group has unveiled robust results for the year to 2 July, with revenue and pre-tax profit both up 9%. Although like-for-like growth was slightly down by 0.6% from a year earlier, revenues rose from £492.8m to £538.5m, while profit before tax profit moved up to £83.6m from £76.8m the year before.Chief executive Nick Wharton said: "Dunelm has continued to perform well, despite the challenging consumer backdrop and an exceptional period of commodity inflation. This has been achieved through a strong focus on retailing excellence, as a result of which we have made significant improvements to our overall model. "Our development programme remains strong. The near-term store opening programme is exciting, as are the enhancements we are about to implement to our on-line proposition. These will build on changes already made in the past year which have proved popular with our customers leading to accelerated revenue growth in this channel."The group proposes to pay a final dividend of 8.0p per share, up from 5p the year before. This, is in addition to an interim dividend of 3.5p, represents a 43.8% increase over the year. The company added: "Our financial position remains strong, enabling us to propose a significant increase in the dividend whilst maintaining cover at 2.5x, still within our target range. The board's confidence in the future development of the Group is reflected in its intention to grow future dividends, from this higher base, in line with earnings."Looking ahead, despite there being no obvious short term catalyst for significant growth in the homewares market, we are confident in the ability of our 'Simply Value for Money' proposition to deliver further growth for Dunelm."Year-end net cash of £35.1m was significantly up from £15.4m the year before. NR