Footwear conglomerate Accent Group is planning to appoint Frasers Group APMEA GM Dave Forsey to its board.
The move comes after Frasers - the British company behind Sports Direct - snapped up Brett Blundy's 14.65 per cent stake in Accent Group in late August.
Accent Group confirmed the news in its first quarter trading update and via its AGM held today.
Forsey is also a former CEO of Sports Direct, and has been part of the Frasers Group business over the last 40 years.
Accent confirmed it will intend to appoint Forsey at the end of its AGM today.
Regarding first quarter results, Accent Group reported a 6.8 per cent lift in owned sales for the first 20 weeks of FY25, which includes wholesale sales. Like-for-like retail sales are up 3.5 per cent.
To the end of October (week 18), FY25 gross margin percentage was down 70 basis points (down 0.7 per cent) compared with the comparable period last year, impacted by a more promotional trading environment.
The continued focus on cost of doing business (CODB) improvement is gaining traction with CODB percentage to sales an improvement to last year inclusive of the impact of restructure costs for the support team.
“Retail sales for the first 20 weeks have continued to be in line with the LFL sales reported in the first 7 weeks,” group CEO Daniel Agostinelli said. “We continue to observe that customers are responding to promotion and value offers with an associated impact to Gross Margin %.
“Our new store opening program is on track and we now expect to open around 40 new stores in H1 FY25. The Trybe was successfully divested in August and is now fully transitioned to its new owners. The closure of the 17 underperforming Glue stores is progressing to plan with 8 stores closed to date.
“The group’s in-stock position along with sales and operational plans are well set heading into the largest trading months of the year.”