David Jones has seen its full year profit slide six per cent amid weaker sales and pressure to cut prices.
The department store business made a net profit of $95.2 million for the 52 weeks to July 27 2013, down from $101.1 million for the same period last year.
The profit slide includes a $9.1 million pre-tax charge relating to the company’s move to hand over control of its electronics division to retailer Dick Smith.
In a statement, David Jones said it continued to face tough retail conditions due to weak consumer sentiment and aggressive discounting.
Underlying profit was $101.6 million, almost unchanged from $101.1 million last year.
The company has watched its profit slide in the past three years, since recording an underlying profit $170.8 million in 2010.
Total sales for the 2013 financial year were down 1.2 per cent to $1.85 billion, while like for like sales were down 1.8 per cent.
CEO, Paul Zahra, said the company expected trading conditions to remain challenging during the next 12 months, but said the department store business was well placed to benefit from any future improvement in consumer sentiment.
He said the retailer will focus on keeping costs down and improving margins while it waited for consumer sentiment to pick up.
“In this environment we are focusing on managing those parts of our business that we can control such as inventory, gross profit margins and costs,” he said.
“As a result of this work we are well positioned to fully leverage any improvement in consumer sentiment as and when it occurs.”
AAP
