Clothing retailer Esprit Holdings Ltd. was back in the black for the first time in the past financial year after a long dry spell. A preliminary analysis of the unaudited results showed that the group was able to achieve net profit attributable to shareholders of approximately HK$370 million (EUR 43 million) in 2021, Esprit said in a statement on Monday. According to its own statements, the company last made a profit in the fiscal year ended June 2017. Times of crisis and upheaval followed with high losses.
Due to the postponement of the end of the financial year from the end of June to the end of December, the company did not present any corresponding comparative figures from the previous year. For the period from July to December 2020, however, a net loss of around 414 million Hong Kong dollars was posted, Esprit said. At the time, the protective shield proceedings of the particularly high-revenue German subsidiaries had shaped the results.
The clothing supplier attributed the return to profitability to a number of reasons: sales and the gross margin had increased significantly, and the company had implemented “efficient cost control measures”, improved inventory management and increased e-commerce revenues, according to a statement . The group intends to present its final, verified results for 2021 on March 29.