Record Interim Performance From Dunelm

Dunelm Group plc ("Dunelm" or "the Group"), the UK's leading homewares retailer, today announces its interim results for the 26 weeks to 25 December 2021.

Highlights 

• Strong sales growth across the total retail system with sales up 10.6% vs H1 FY21 and 36.0% vs H1 FY20
  
  
• Continued outperformance of the market in both homewares and furniture⁴
  
  
• Proposition and brand development driving active customers to 13 million, a 6.3%⁵ increase over 12 months
  
  
• Gross margin +80bps year-on-year, due to higher full price sell through of seasonal lines, with the prior year margin impacted by store lockdowns
  
  
• Continued investment in digital capabilities to improve customer proposition with new ecommerce fulfilment facility opened in Stoke
  
  
• Record H1 PBT of £140.8m, +25.3% vs H1 FY21 (FY21 H1: £112.4m, FY20 H1: £83.6m), with profit margin reflecting a particularly strong stores performance and leverage of fixed costs
  
  
• Free cash flow of £106.3m, including working capital outflow of £21.0m (building inventories to mitigate supply chain disruption), with net cash at period end of £47.7m (FY21 H1: £140.6m)
  
  
• Interim dividend of 14p (FY21 H1: 12p); and special dividend of 37p to return to leverage in line with published capital policy 

Outlook

• Trading to date in the second half, including the Winter Sale, has continued to be encouraging and the Board expects that FY22 PBT will be in line with recently upgraded expectations⁶
  
  
• Macro-economic outlook remains uncertain; however we are well placed to navigate inflationary challenges
  
  
• Confident in long term growth plans and further market share gains

Nick Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all my colleagues and our committed supplier partners for their adaptability and achievements and for living our Dunelm shared values every day. Together we have navigated another period filled with significant and evolving external challenges and delivered a very strong performance in the first half, with continued growth in customer numbers, further market share gains, record sales and particularly strong profitability.

"When we announced our interim results in 2020, we were weeks away from the world being turned upside down. Two years later, we are moving forwards as a bigger, better business, with more capability, more resilience, more ambition, and delivering accelerated growth.

"We have not only worked hard and innovated to enhance our customers' experience across all channels and categories, but have also continued to develop our customer proposition and capabilities at pace to support our future growth. Our product range is now broader and better than ever, with an increasing focus on sustainability, as demonstrated in our new collection which has been curated in collaboration with the Natural History Museum.

"We look to the future excited, energised and eager to continue being our customers' 1^st choice for home."

Key: 

1 Digital includes home delivery, Click & Collect (or Reserve & Collect before October 2019) and tablet-based sales in store

2 Free cash flow is defined as net cash generated from operating activities less capex (net of disposals), net interest paid and loan transaction costs, interest on lease liabilities and repayment of lease liabilities. A reconciliation of operating profit to free cash flow is included in the CFO review

3 Excluding lease liabilities. Full definition provided in the table of alternative performance measures in the CFO review

⁴ Based on GfK weekly homewares and furniture panel

5 Unique active customers who have shopped in the 12 months to December 2021, based on management estimates using Barclays data

⁶ Management understand the range of analysts' estimates for FY22 PBT, which have been updated since the second quarter trading statement, is £198m - £218m, with consensus of £206m

Source : Dunelm

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