Premier Retail, formerly known as the Just Group, is set to overhaul the business in a six point improvement plan, including closing up to 50 unprofitable stores at the end of their leases.
The owner of retailers including Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Smiggle, Peter Alexander and Portmans has said the implementation of this plan is the company’s response to “challenging” retail environment.
Recently appointed CEO and former David Jones boss Mark McInnes said the business is highly dependent on the July school holidays but have not received the results that were expected.
“We have not experienced that expected uplift from July school holidays across Australia and New Zealand that we experienced in April,” he said.
“In addition, margin has remained under pressure as industry wide discounting has increased. We have moved swiftly to better align our cost base for the financial year of 2012, as well as ensure our excess winter inventory has been priced to clear over the last two weeks of this month.”
Despite this, the company expects that total sales for the second half of the 2011 financial year for 26 weeks to 30 July 2011 for Australia and New Zealand will see a 2.4 per cent lift.
P also plans on implanting its 100 point project plan that focuses on offsetting all price increases without impact customers.
It also looks growing and expanding its online business, which is Just Group’s largest store, by ensuring that all brands will be online by September this year and leveraging its social networking database of over one million customers.
There will also be a high concentration on building its retail footprint for its Peter Alexander and Smiggle brands with expectations of opening respectively 15 to 30 new stores and 30 to 15 new stores over the next three years in Australia.
Premier Retail now expects full year earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to be in the range of $64 million to $66 million, while consolidated underlying profit before tax is expected to be between $72 million and $74 million.
Additionally, with expectations that the future will be “bright” the outlook for the financial year of 2012, EBIT is expected to be in the range of $80 million to $95 million.