Financial-year-to-date sales at Briscoe Group have slipped into negative territory, with group managing director Rod Duke citing a struggling economy and sluggish spending across retail.
The Rebel Sport and Briscoe Homeware parent company reported a 0.28 per cent fall in total revenue in the first 48 weeks of the New Zealand financial year, with homewares down 0.29 per cent and sporting goods down 0.26 per cent.
In the first nine weeks of the final quarter, Rebel Sport sales were down 0.20 per cent, while Briscoe Homeware was up 0.82 per cent.
“In line with recent reports highlighting a struggling economy and sluggish spending across retail, we are yet to see any marked improvement in consumer confidence hoped for on the back of decreases in the OCR [official cash rate],” Duke said.
“While there were some positive signs across Black Friday promotions, we believe the event was diluted by the continued economic downturn as well as the amount of promotional activity that started considerably earlier than previous years.
“While Christmas trading, particularly our Boxing Day promotions, improved compared to Black Friday, December trading was still under anticipated levels.”
The year-to-date sales slip is a slight improvement on the group’s year-to-date sales reported on October 27, 2024, which were then down 0.51 per cent.
Despite the recent sales slip, Duke said that finishing the financial year at 99 per cent of the previous year’s record full-year sales will be a significant achievement considering the current market.
He added that the current highly competitive retail environment continues to place pressure on both the group’s gross margin and bottom line. As a result, Briscoe Group expects its year-end net profit after tax (NPAT) to fall short of previous guidance, with Duke confirming it will be greater tahn $66 million.
Previous guidance indicated NPAT to be between $70 million to $77 million.
“We continue to focus on controlling costs and ensuring the closing inventory position optimises both cost and quality. A benefit of trading as hard as we are throughout this fourth quarter, will be a January year-end inventory position which will close under last year and ensure the group is extremely well placed for our new financial year.”
Duke noted that the new NPAT guidance excludes the previously announced one-off, non-cash tax adjustment of $7.4 million booked as a result of changes to tax depreciation on commercial buildings enacted by the NZ Government in 2024.