The US trading group TJX Companies Inc. felt the effects of the omicron variant of the corona virus in the fourth quarter of the 2021/22 financial year. The recent wave of the pandemic dampened demand and curbed sales growth in the Christmas shopping season. The results presented by the world’s largest off-price provider on Wednesday fell just short of market expectations.
For the entire fiscal year that ended on January 29, the parent company of the TK Maxx chain generated sales of 48.5 billion US dollars (42.9 billion euros). It was 51.1 percent above the level of the previous year, when temporary store closures as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic had seriously affected business. Compared to the pre-crisis year 2019/20, revenues increased by 16.4 percent.
The retailer more than doubled its net income from last year to $940.2 million (€831.2 million) after hitting just $325.5 million in 2020/21. At that time, however, the result was burdened by one-off debt repayment expenses of around 312 million US dollars.
Because the company recently had to pay higher freight and personnel costs, the annual profit could not quite meet the analysts’ expectations either. However, CEO Ernie Herrman was confident that the group would increase its profitability “as soon as the macroeconomic environment normalizes”.