B&M European Value Retail increases its 2016 full year dividend by 41.2% and pays special

DividendMax Ltd.

B&M European Value Retail increases its 2016 full year dividend by 41.2% and pays special

HIGHLIGHTS

Business highlights

● Record number of 79 UK store openings (74 net new stores), taking our total number of stores in the UK to 499 at the end of March  

● Pipeline of 50 new stores in the UK for FY2017

● Two new additional distribution centres opened in the UK in September 2015 totalling 800,000 square feet, supporting continued rapid store growth

● Pipeline of 19 new store openings in Germany for FY2017 through organic growth of 10 stores and the exchange of a conditional agreement for the acquistion of a 9 store chain in the second half

Financial overview

● Group revenues increased by +23.6% to £2,035.3m (2015: £1,646.8m)

● UK like-for-like sales +0.3% (2015: +4.4%) and 2.4% on an underlying basis¹

● Adjusted Group EBITDA increased by 16.2% to £202.5m (2015: £174.2m)

● Group EBITDA increased by 30.6% to £196.1m (2015: £150.1m)

● Adjusted profit before tax increased by 19.5% to £161.4m (2015: £135.0m)

● Adjusted diluted earnings per share 13.0p (2015: 10.3p)

● Diluted earnings per share 12.4p (2015: 3.4p)

Strong cash generation

● Strong cashflow conversion whilst also investing in new stores and distribution centres, with operating cashflow of £170.9m (2015: £152.9m),

● Net debt reduced to £354.2m from £381.0m in 2015 and net debt to Adjusted Group EBITDA reduced from 2.19 times to 1.75 times

● Recommended final dividend of 3.2p per share to be paid on 5 August 2016, an increase of 41.2% in the total dividend for the year of 4.8p (2015: 3.4p).

● Declared a special dividend of 10.0p per share (equating to £100m in total) in line with our capital structure policy, to be paid on 8 July 2016

 

Sir Terry Leahy, Chairman, said,

"B&M has delivered another year of strong progress with the implementation of our strategy for growth and an excellent financial performance in terms of overall sales, profits and cash generation. Our expansion strategy is on track to deliver further growth during the year ahead in our chosen markets. The Board is pleased to declare a special dividend of 10.0p per share as well as recommending a substantial increase in the final dividend, reflecting our strongly cash generative business model."

Simon Arora, Chief Executive, said,

"B&M's disruptive pricing, unique sourcing model and range discipline has continued to drive our business forward to win market share. More people are able to access our stores as a result of our continuing and successful new store programme. We now regularly serve 3.3 million customers on average each week. As a result of a record 79 new stores opened in the financial year, we have now passed the milestone of 500 UK stores. In the UK there are many locations where we don't currently trade but would like to and in Germany we are beginning to accelerate our pace of expansion, and we continue to see attractive returns from our new store programme. Everyone at B&M has worked tremendously hard to deliver this market-leading growth and I would like to thank them for their continued commitment and hard work."

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