Monsoon and Accessorize owner enters the red as sales slip
The owner of Monsoon and Accessorize slumped into the red as its sales were slashed during its latest financial year, it has been revealed.
Adena Brands, which is owned by Peter Simon, has reported a pre-tax loss of £7.5m for the 12 months to 31 August, 2024.
The loss comes after the group posted a pre-tax profit of £14m in its prior financial year.
New accounts filed with Companies House also show the group’s turnover declined from £231m to £204.6m over the same period.
The group said the results were “disappointing” and “reflected a challenging environment, with weak consumer demand and steep wage and other cost inflation, but also underperformance in several areas”.
It added that the results also show “both that underperformance and the investments made to turn the performance around”.
The group issued a dividend of £2m for the financial year to owner Peter Simon, up from the £1m it paid out for the prior 12 months.
In a statement, Simon said: “In the face of a challenging trading backdrop and ongoing inflationary pressures, we took the necessary steps to realign and strengthen our business.
“Due to the actions taken and investments made, we are encouraged by current trading performance and optimistic about the opportunities ahead of us.
“We remain committed to our strategy and are continuing to invest in our product, distribution channels, and technology so that we are in an even better position to capitalise on the new fiscal year’s momentum.”
Monsoon and Accessorize owner eyes recovery
On its current trading, the group said: “Despite continued weak consumer spending and a new round of wage cost increases, the group is seeing positive results from the investments made last year and the continued strong performance of our core UK Accessorise and Monsoon women’s businesses.
“At the time of writing, with eight months of our current fiscal year complete… the group has seen a return to sales growth, profitability and much better performance in the arms that causes such concern last year.”
The group added that it intends to deal with the increases to the National Minimum Wage, new employment regulations and the rise in employer National Insurance contributions by “improving our store productivity and a renewed focus on managing our overall headcount and wage increases”.
It also said it would focus on automation and the use of technology to “drive efficiency in our operations, stores and digital business”.
In a statement, chief executive Nick Stowe said: “Last year was a tough year for us and for retail in general.
“But it’s a long game, and we pushed ahead with our plans and investment, and faced into the
need to improve our performance in several areas.
“Our new Monsoon and Accessorize stores are performing much better, we’ve made our digital business much more profitable, and our international transitions have shifted good businesses from failing franchisees to a much stronger partner in Saudi and our own operation in Italy.
“We’ve started to utilise the core technology investments we’ve made to become more efficient and to launch new functionality to connect our stores and digital business, something we expect to pay off in the years ahead.
“Turnarounds are rarely linear or straightforward, but we’ve navigated a difficult year back into growth and solid profitability, and we’re confident in the momentum we’re building for the
years ahead.”