Greaves dips into the red

Deputy Business Editor

Thursday 18 October 2012

GREAVES Sports is confident it is pursuing the right course to get back into profit after annual accounts showed it fell into the red.

ONLINE VENTURE: Directors Sandy Greaves and his sister Ann Leslie. Picture: Cate Gillon

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Greig Cameron Deputy Business Editor

In documents filed at Companies House the Glasgow business reported a £308,634 pre-tax loss for the 12 months to January this year, against a profit of £46,193 in the previous period.

Turnover fell 8.5% from £9.02 million to £8.25m with administrative expenses cut from £3.8m to £3.6m.

Managing director Sandy Greaves said: "Like everyone else, clearly we'd like to make a profit every year but these are not ordinary years in retail. "Without dressing up these results we are comfortable with our position and have a huge amount of confidence in the direction we're going."Mr Greaves said the accounts reflect the "tough" conditions on the high street and he pointed out 2011 was relatively quiet in terms of major sporting events with events such as the Olympics, Ryder Cup and European football championships taking place this year. Greaves is investing in its online operations – including partnerships with Scottish Rugby and the Scottish Football Association – and is considering when to fully enter the Edinburgh market where it currently only operates a clearance store. Mr Greaves said: "We are operating against a backdrop of increased price pressure thanks to internet and discount retailers cheapening the offering, but we will not devalue the brands we work with by trying to compete on price alone and will continue to present our products well, train staff and offer a truly great service. "No matter the economic circumstances, our standards of customer service will not be compromised, and we will protect the margins which justify delivering this service. "We're looking at areas of growth and have invested significantly in the e-commerce side of the business with three new websites soon to launch to cope with increased demand on greavessports.com, scottishrugbydirect.com and scottishfootballdirect.com."The online side of the business is a major opportunity over the next five years and in addition we continue to consider taking Greaves Sports into Edinburgh with a number of our top suppliers looking at supporting us in this venture."Staff costs dipped from £1.85m to £1.63m as average employee numbers fell from 143 to 107.Greaves said it employs a variable number of casual and temporary staff depending on how many external events it may attend but core staff numbers remain the same.Directors' remuneration decreased from £255,163 to £209,835 with the highest paid seeing a decline from £86,900 to £81,957.

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Greaves dips into the red

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