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Truworths, the fashion retailer, had experienced excellent trading across all areas of the business in the year to June, Michael Mark, the chief executive, said yesterday.

August 24, 2007 By Ronnie Morris Cape Town – Truworths, the fashion retailer, had experienced excellent trading across all areas of the business in the year to June, Michael Mark, the chief executive, said yesterday. The group’s subsidiaries include Truworths, Identity, The Young Designers Emporium and a majority shareholding in Uzzi, the upper-end men’s fashion chain. Trading results for Uzzi had exceeded expectations and the group was likely to exercise its option to increase its shareholding from 51 percent to 100 percent during the 2008 period, Mark said. Asked what his expectations were for the run-up to the year-end festive season, Mark said that while the company expected satisfactory results for its shareholders, it was a lot more cautious. Group sales, which include retail and franchise sales, increased 27 percent to R4.8 billion from the year before. Headline earnings a share of R2.486 equate to a 33 percent rise from the year before. Operating profit rose 30 percent to R1.6 billion, with the operating margin improving from 32.6 percent to 33.3 percent. A final dividend of 60c a share has been declared. Mark said that while the group was continuing to apply strict criteria for the granting of credit, it had managed to achieve solid growth in new customer accounts and in the active account base, which now consisted of about 1.7 million card holders. The increases in bad and doubtful debt ratios were in line with expectations and compared favourably with industry norms. It was too soon to say what effect the National Credit Act, which was implemented in June, and the increases in interest rates would have on the business, the company said. The group had cash and cash equivalents of R216 million. During the period under review, Truworths repurchased 4.5 million shares at a cost of R167 million.