The Austrian clothing retailer Wolford AG significantly increased its sales in the 2021 financial year. Thanks to extensive austerity measures and reforms, progress has also been made in terms of earnings, the company said on Friday. The bottom line was a loss of millions again.
After a key date change decided in the previous year, the 2021 financial year corresponded to the calendar year for the first time. Due to this change, the previous financial year was listed in the annual report as a short financial year of only eight months. The clothing supplier also published comparative figures for the 2020 calendar year for some key figures.
Group sales reached EUR 108.9 million in 2021 and were thus 14 percent above the level of the 2020 calendar year. According to the company, sales in China (+79 percent) and the USA (+38 percent) developed particularly dynamically. . In the EMEA region, which includes Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic slowed growth. Sales there increased by only seven percent.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were 8.5 million euros, after Wolford had to accept a deficit of 8.0 million euros on this basis the year before. The company said that EBITDA adjusted for real estate sales had reached its highest level in ten years.
The loss before interest and taxes (EBIT) amounted to 5.3 million euros. Wolford emphasized that an “operative improvement of more than 33 million euros” was achieved compared to the previous calendar year and that “the best operating result since the 2015/16 financial year” was achieved. “Apart from the significant reduction in operating costs (personnel costs and other operating expenses) by 14 percent, a gross margin of 80.7 percent, which is higher than in the same period of the previous year, is decisive for the leap in earnings,” the company explained. The reported net loss for 2021 was 12.3 million euros.
With the most recent results, the management has “put Wolford back on track”, emphasized the two board members Andrew Thorndike and Silvia Azzali in the current annual report. The plan is now to “reach the sales level before the pandemic in the short term” and to “break the 200 million euro sales mark in four to five years” with constant growth.