FASHION chain SuperGroup shrugged off the freezing start to the year as a revamp of womenswear helped deliver "solid" sales growth.
The chain, which owns the Superdry, Cult and SurfCo California brands, said like-for-like sales grew 5% in the 13 weeks to the end of April, its fourth quarter.
While that was down on 10.6% underlying growth during its third quarter and 6.9% growth for the year as a whole, SuperGroup said it remains on track to deliver pre-tax profits in line with expectations.
Analysts' consensus is for profits of £51.2 million for the year to the end of April.
Chief executive Julian Dunkerton said: "I am pleased that the fourth quarter has seen a good trading performance against the backdrop of a challenging market given the extended period of cold weather in early spring."
Mr Dunkerton, who co-founded the group as a market stall in Cheltenham, said the group has also made "significant progress" in developing product ranges.
SuperGroup, which floated on the stock market in 2010, said it is enhancing its financial and operational processes to keep pace with growth.
It opened 28,000 sq ft of new space during the quarter, including 16,000 sq ft at a new store in Leeds.
It now has 113 owned stores, plus 144 franchised sites, with new franchised locations including France, Spain, Denmark and India. The chain plans to ramp up its expansion in Europe after a year of "consolidation".
Total group sales were up almost 15% for the year to £360.1m.
Analysts at Panmure Gordon said the underlying annual sales growth was "impressive by any retailer's standard".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article