B&M posts drop in profit as it reviews German business

B&M’s adjusted pre-tax profit has declined by 2.8% to £96 million following a disappointing first half performance at its Jawoll business in Germany.

In the 26 weeks to September 29^th, group pre-tax profit dropped by 70.5% to £32.2 million when an impairment charge of £59.5 million relating to Jawoll was included.

Group revenues did climb by 12.4% to £1.76 billion.

Like-for-like sales at B&M’s UK business edged up 3.7% in the period while revenue grew by 13.8%.

Simon Arora, B&M chief executive, said:  “We have delivered a solid overall first half performance driven by our core B&M UK stores business which constitutes 86% of group sales. Our existing stores performed consistently well through the last two quarters, generating half year like-for-likes of 3.7%. The current crop of new stores also achieved especially strong results.”