The trading group Pepco Group NV ended the 2022/23 financial year with mixed sales figures. In recent months, the “difficult market conditions” have increasingly weighed on demand, said the parent company of the discounters Pepco, Poundland and Dealz in an interim statement published on Friday.
The current results did not come as a surprise. The retailer had already admitted in September that sales development had recently been increasingly disappointing and had taken personnel consequences. Anand Patel, the managing director of the Pepco chain, had to resign from his post. The retailer also announced that it wanted to slow down its pace of expansion.
According to the key data now presented, group sales in the financial year ended at the end of September amounted to 5.65 billion euros. Adjusted for exchange rate changes, revenues exceeded the previous year’s level by 17.7 percent. Adjusted for area and currency effects, the increase rate was 6.0 percent. According to its own information, the group increased the number of its branches over the course of the year by 668 to a total of 4,629.
In the fourth quarter, however, the growth was almost entirely due to the numerous new openings. Group sales grew currency-adjusted by 12.5 percent to 1.44 billion euros, but on a like-for-like basis they only marginally exceeded the previous year’s level (+0.2 percent).
This was mainly due to the weak development of the discounter Pepco. Its quarterly sales increased by 12.6 percent after currency adjustments to 864 million euros, but like-for-like sales fell by 2.4 percent.
The retailer said it would present details of its future strategy at a capital markets day next week. The full annual results are due to be published on December 12th.