# WH Smith strong performance with Group revenue up 28% to £1,793m - Link: https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/wh-smith-strong-performance-with-group-revenue-up-28-to-1793m/4121132251 - Published: 2023-11-09T09:00:18+00:00 - Author: Amilia Stone **WH Smith plc** (LON:SMWH) has announced its preliminary results for the year ended 31 August 2023. ·    Strong performance with Group revenue up 28% to £1,793m (2022: £1,400m) o  Total revenue in Travel UK up 36%; North America up 32%; Rest of the World (‘ ROW’) up 99% ·    Headline profit before tax and non-underlying items^(†) up 96% to £143m (2022: £73m) o  Total Travel trading profit^(†) of £164m (2022: £89m) o  High Street trading profit^(†) of £32m (2022: £33m) ·    Headline diluted EPS before non-underlying items^(†) up 93% to 80.3p ·    New store pipeline of over 110 stores^(‡) won and yet to open in Travel, including over 60 in North America ·    Investing for growth with capex in the current financial year expected to be around £140m ·    Proposed final dividend of 20.8p per share making full year dividend of 28.9p per share, reflecting strong trading and cash generation combined with confidence in future prospects ·    Strong balance sheet with leverage now at 1.4x with further strengthening expected ·    Strong start to the new financial year with continued momentum across our Travel markets. Total revenue in the first 9 weeks to 4 November 2023 up 13% in Travel UK; up 15%* in North America and up 27%* in ROW **Carl Cowling, Group Chief Executive, commented:** _“This has been another year of significant progress for the Group. Our Travel divisions have all seen strong growth with Travel UK total revenue up 36%, North America up 32% and ROW up 99%, and I am very pleased with the start to the new financial year._ _“Our global travel business is growing in all our key markets. It is highly scalable with multiple medium and long term growth opportunities and_ _we are seeing great results from sharing our expertise and innovation across our different geographies. Our North American business is benefitting from our forensic approach to space management which has always been a key feature of our UK Travel operations. In the same way, the ability of our North American business to provide bespoke retail formats is now being successfully harnessed outside of the US._ _“WHSmith is a highly cash generative business. In 2024, we expect to invest a further £140m which will drive further growth and at the same time we expect our leverage to fall within our target range._ _“These results would not be possible without the extraordinary efforts of our entire team across the globe, and I would like to offer my sincere thanks for their support._ _“The Board’s decision to propose an increase to the final dividend to 20.8p per share, making a full year dividend of 28.9p per share, reflects the good performance, the Group’s cash generation and our confidence in the future given the multiple growth opportunities that exist for WHSmith._ _“__We have started the new financial year well with total revenue in Travel UK up 13%, North America up 15%, and ROW up 27%. With good trading and very positive prospects, despite the uncertainty in the economic environment, we are confident in the Group’s outlook for the new financial year.”_ * On a constant currency basis † Pre-IFRS 16 ‡ Pipeline as at 31 August 2023 **_Group financial summary:_** | ** ** | ** ** | **Headline** | | ** ** | **IFRS 16** | **pre-IFRS 16^(2)** | | ** ** | **Aug 2023** | Aug 2022 | **Aug 2023** | Aug 2022 | | Travel UK trading profit^(1) | £101m | £60m | £102m | £54m | | North America (‘NA’) trading profit^(1) | £52m | £33m | £49m | £31m | | Rest of the World (‘ROW’) trading profit^(1) | £13m | £3m | £13m | £4m | | Total Travel trading profit^(1) | £166m | £96m | £164m | £89m | | High Street trading profit^(1) | £43m | £45m | £32m | £33m | | Group profit from trading operations^(1) | £209m | £141m | £196m | £122m | | Group profit before tax and non-underlying items^(1) | £137m | £83m | £143m | £73m | | Diluted earnings per share before non-underlying items^(1) | 76.5p | 47.7p | 80.3p | 41.7p | | Non-underlying items^(1) | £(27)m | £(20)m | £(15)m | £(12)m | | Group profit before tax | £110m | £63m | £128m | £61m | | Basic earnings per share | 60.8p | 36.2p | 71.5p | 35.4p | | Diluted earnings per share | 59.8p | 35.6p | 70.5p | 34.8p | **_Revenue performance:_** | ** ** | **Aug 2023****£m** | **Aug 2022****£m** | **% change** | | Travel UK | 709 | 521 | 36% | | North America | 380 | 288 | 32% | | Rest of the World | 235 | 118 | 99% | | Total Travel | 1,324 | 927 | 43% | | High Street | 469 | 473 | (1)% | | Group | 1,793 | 1,400 | 28% | ^(1) Alternative Performance Measure (APM) defined and explained in the Glossary on page 44. ^(2) The Group adopted IFRS 16 ‘Leases’ with effect from 1 September 2019. The Group continues to monitor performance and allocate resources based on pre-IFRS 16 information( applying the principles of IAS 17), and therefore the results for the years ended 31 August 2023 and 31 August 2022 have been presented on both an IFRS 16 and a pre- IFRS 16 basis. Measures described as ‘Headline’ are presented pre-IFRS 16. For the purposes of narrative commentary on the Group’s performance and financial position, both pre-IFRS 16 and IFRS 16 measures are provided. Reconciliations from pre-IFRS 16 measures to IFRS 16 measures are provided in the Glossary on page 44. Group revenue was not affected by the adoption of IFRS 16, and therefore all references to and discussion of revenue are based on statutory measures. WH Smith PLC’s Preliminary Results 2023 are available at whsmithplc.co.uk. **GROUP OVERVIEW** The Group has had another very successful year with Total Travel generating Headline trading profit^(1) of £164m (2022: £89m), Headline Group profit before tax and non- underlying items^(1)  up 96% to  £143m (2022: £73m) and Headline diluted EPS before non-underlying items^(1) up 93% to 80.3p (2022: 41.7p). The new financial year has started well with good momentum across all our Travel markets. The pace of winning new business in Travel remains strong. Across the UK, North America and Rest of the World we won 92 stores in the year and now have over 110 stores won and due to open, of which we expect over 100 to open this financial year whilst closing 22 stores as we focus on better quality space. Travel is well positioned to continue to create value through the structurally advantaged markets in which it operates and the considerable opportunities to win and open additional stores. Analysis from the International Air Transport Association (‘IATA’) suggests that passenger numbers will return to 2019 levels during calendar year 2024 and will continue to grow in low single digits each year thereafter in the medium term. We utilise our forensic approach to retailing to drive average transaction value(” ATV’) growth and space management to increase the spend per passenger in our stores. This, combined with scalability in the significant opportunities to win and open new stores, gives us the confidence to continue to grow revenue, profit, cash generation, and through operational gearing, grow our EBIT margins. We have made substantial progress and saw significant growth in the year, supported by the key pillars of our strategy and our ongoing forensic approach to retailing across each of our businesses. These include: ·    **_Space growth:_** o  Opening new stores; o  Winning new business; o  New, better quality space; o  Extending contracts; o  Developing formats and brands ·    **_ATV growth:_** o  Space management; o  Refitting stores; o  Range development ·    **_Category development:_** o  One-stop-shop travel essentials format; o  Internationalising the InMotion brand; o  Improving ranges, e.g. health and beauty, food to go, and tech ·    **_Cost and cash management:_** o  Flexible rent model; o  Investing for growth (capex in the current financial year expected to be around £140m); o  Productivity and efficiencies ·    **_Disciplined capital allocation, supporting investment in growth and shareholder returns_** In the year, Travel was approximately 75% of Group revenue and 85% of Headline Group profit from trading operations. Both of these measures will increase as we continue to grow Travel which reinforces that we are now a global travel retailer. **Group revenue** | ** ** | **Revenue (% change)****Year to 31 August 2023** | | ** ** | **Total****vs 2022** | **LFL^(1,3)****vs 2022** | | Travel UK | 36% | 30% | | North America | 32% | 11% | | Rest of the World | 99% | 53% | | ** ** | ** ** | ** ** | | **Total Travel** | **43%** | **27%** | | | | | | High Street^(4) | (1)% | 1% | | ** ** | ** ** | ** ** | | **Group** | **28%** | **18%** | ^(3) Constant currency ^(4) Includes internet businesses Total Group revenue at £1,793m (2022: £1,400m) was up 28% compared to the prior year. In Travel, we saw a strong performance across all our markets with Total Travel revenue up 43% and up 27% on a like-for-like^(1) (‘LFL’) basis. This was driven by strong performances in all three Travel divisions, with Travel UK up 36% on a total basis, North America up 32%, and ROW up 99%. We saw a consistently good performance in High Street throughout the year, with the Christmas trading period flat year on year on a LFL basis. Passenger numbers have recovered strongly during the year and momentum has continued into the new financial year. **Group profit** Total Travel delivered a Headline trading profit^(1) in the year of £164m (2022: £89m) with all three divisions growing significantly: Travel UK increased by £48m to £102m; North America increased by £18m to £49m; and ROW increased by £9m to £ 13m. High Street delivered a Headline trading profit^(1) of £32m (2022: £33m), in line with expectations. Headline Group profit from trading operations^(1) for the year was £196m (2022: £122m) with Headline Group profit before tax and non-underlying items^(1) up 96% to £143m (2022: £73m). The Group profit before tax, including non-underlying items and on an IFRS 16 basis, was £110m (2022: £63m) in the year. **Group balance sheet** The Group has a strong balance sheet, is highly cash generative and has substantial liquidity. The Group has the following cash and committed facilities as at 31 August 2023: | | **31 August 2023** | **Maturity** | | Cash and cash equivalents^(5) | £56m | | | Revolving Credit Facility^(6) | £400m | June 2028 | | Convertible bonds | £327m | May 2026 | ^(5) Cash and cash equivalents comprises cash on deposit of £34m and cash in transit of £22m ^(6) Draw down of £84m as at 31 August 2023 In June 2023, we completed the refinancing of the Group’s borrowing facilities with a new 5 year [sustainability](https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/sustainability-green-stocks-news)- linked revolving credit facility (‘RCF’).  The Group also has a £327m convertible bond with a maturity of 7 May 2026 which has a fixed coupon of 1.625%. As at 31 August 2023, Headline net debt^(1) was £330m (2022: £296m) and the Group has access to c.£350m of liquidity. Leverage at the year end was 1.4x Headline EBITDA ^(1). We expect to be within our leverage envelope of between 0.75x and 1.25x Headline EBITDA^(1) by the end of this financial year. **Group cash flow** The Group generated an operating cash flow^(1) of £235m in the year (2022: £155m) demonstrating the cash generative nature of the business. Capex was £122m (2022: £83m) as we continued to invest in new stores, IT, energy efficient chillers and other store equipment. As expected, we had a working capital outflow of £64m in the year (2022: £10m). This mainly relates to investment in new stores, the recovering Travel business and some timing. Most of the outflow was in the first half. This year, we expect a much smaller outflow mainly relating to opening new stores. In total, there was a free cash inflow in the year of £20m (2022: £41m). This year we would expect, subject to investment opportunities, an increase in free cash generation, and net debt to be around £310m. **Capital allocation policy** The cash generative nature of the Group is complemented by our disciplined approach to capital allocation. This has been in place for many years and continues to drive our decision making for utilising our cash: ·    investing in our existing business and in new opportunities where rates of return are ahead of the cost of capital; this year, we expect capex of c.£140m ·    paying a dividend. We have a progressive dividend policy with a target dividend cover, over time, of 2.5x; the Board is proposing a full year dividend of 28.9p per share ·    undertaking attractive value-creating acquisitions in strong and growing markets; and ·    returning surplus cash to shareholders via share buy backs. The Board has proposed a final dividend of 20.8p per share in respect of the financial year ended 31 August 2023, which together with the interim dividend, gives a full year dividend of 28.9p per share. This reflects the cash generative nature of the business and our confidence in the future prospects of the Group. Subject to shareholder approval, the dividend will be paid on 1 February 2024 to shareholders registered at the close of business on 12 January 2024. **TOTAL TRAVEL** Total Travel revenue was £1,324m (2022: £927m), up 43% compared to the previous year, generating a Total Travel Headline trading profit^(1) in the year of £164m( 2022: £89m). | **£m** | **Trading profit**^(1)**(IFRS 16)** | **Headline trading profit**^(1)**(pre-IFRS 16)** | ** ****Revenue** | | ** ** | **2023** | **2022** | **2023** | **2022** | **2023** | **2022** | | Travel UK | 101 | 60 | 102 | 54 | 709 | 521 | | North America | 52 | 33 | 49 | 31 | 380 | 288 | | Rest of the World | 13 | 3 | 13 | 4 | 235 | 118 | | **Total Travel** | **166** | **96** | **164** | **89** | **1,324** | **927** | In Travel, our initiatives position us well for future growth: ·     **_Space growth – Business development and winning new business_** Through building and managing relationships with all our landlord partners, we look to win new space, improve the quality and amount of space, develop new formats and extend contracts. During the year, we opened 118 stores and we now have a store pipeline of over 110 stores. Going forward, we expect to win, on average, around 50 to 60 stores a year. There are significant space growth opportunities across all our Travel markets. ·     **_ATV growth_** We aim to grow ATV through our forensic analysis of the return on our space, cross- category promotions, merchandising, store layouts and store refits. During the year, we have continued to focus on re-engineering our ranges and we continue to see good ATV growth across all our channels. ·     **_Category development_** We do this by developing adjacent product categories relevant for our customers, such as health and beauty and tech ranges, and expanding existing categories such as premium food ranges. Throughout the year, we have continued to focus on identifying further opportunities where we can reposition our traditional news, books and convenience(‘ NBC’) format to a one-stop-shop travel essentials format. The results from our one- stop-shop stores have been positive. ·     **_Cost and cash management_** We remain focused on cost efficiency and productivity, for example, by investing in more energy efficient chillers in-store and increasing the number of self scan tills, particularly in North America. **_TRAVEL UK_** Travel UK, our largest division, has delivered a year of significant growth and we continue to have good opportunities to grow this division further. Air passenger numbers still remain below pre-pandemic levels and we are confident that, as passenger numbers continue to recover, this division will see an ongoing improvement in profitability as we leverage our fixed cost base. All our channels in Travel UK have performed strongly during the year with total revenue growth of 36% versus last year. We have started the new financial year strongly with all three channels delivering good growth. | ** ** | **Revenue (% change)****Year to 31 August 2023** | | ** ** | **Total****vs 2022** | **LFL^(1)****vs 2022** | | Air | 48% | 37% | | Hospitals | 32% | 26% | | Rail | 15% | 19% | | ** ** | ** ** | ** ** | | **Total Travel UK** | **36%** | **30%** | Total revenue in the year was £709m (2022: £521m) which, together with improved margins, resulted in a Headline trading profit^(1) of £102m (2022: £54m). Across all our channels, we continue to focus on our key growth drivers: space growth, increasing ATV and spend per passenger, driving EBIT margins and benefitting from the growth in passenger numbers. Momentum is strong and we are seeing good results, with revenue growing ahead of passenger numbers. We are investing in our UK store portfolio while also identifying new and better quality space opportunities across each of our channels. During the year, we have made excellent progress opening 20 new stores, including 6 at airports, 8 in hospitals and 3 in rail. We see this annual space growth of around 15 new stores in Travel UK extending into the medium term. We closed 19 small and less well located stores in the year. This year, we expect to open over 15 new stores in the UK, of which 12 are already contracted, and close 4 stores. **_Air_** Air, which is the biggest channel in Travel UK, delivered a strong performance with total revenue up 48% and LFL revenue up 37% on the prior year. We continually develop our retail formats to better address the changing requirements of airport landlords and customers. Our one-stop-shop for travel essentials format continues to generate significant opportunities across all channels and improve profitability. We have a very strong customer proposition which is tailored to each location and channel. Next week, we will open our largest UK Travel store. This is a 6,000 sq ft flagship one-stop- shop for travel essentials store at Birmingham International airport, further developing this format. This new store will be tailored to the requirements of the landlord and provides passengers with a bespoke, localised customer experience by drawing on our experience from North America. The store will offer everything you would expect from a WHSmith, as well as a broader product range, large health and beauty and tech zones, and coffee. By extending our categories such as health and beauty, tech and food to go, we are able to provide time-pressed customers with all their travel essentials under one roof with a fast and convenient shopping experience. This enables us to expose both new and existing customers to a broader range of categories, which has resulted in an increase in sales per square foot, a higher ATV and spend per passenger. This delivers superior returns with improved margins and attractive economics for our landlords. **_Hospitals_** The hospital channel, our second largest channel in Travel UK by revenue, continued its very strong growth with total revenue up 32% and LFL revenue up 26% in the year. This is a growing channel for us with significant opportunities to continue to increase our space and improve the retail proposition using our broad suite of brands. During the year, we opened 8 new stores, including Royal Liverpool and Royal Sussex hospitals. Looking ahead, we have a good pipeline of opportunities in this channel, where we see scope for at least one of our four formats (WHSmith, Marks & Spencer Simply Food, Costa Coffee, and our proprietary coffee brands) in up to 200 further hospitals. We are excited by the opportunity to grow our coffee offer. By using our expertise in localisation from our North American business, we have recently won two new stores in Sheffield hospitals under a new coffee concept. Working with local artists and roasteries, we have designed a bespoke store with a local coffee offer. **_Rail_** Our Rail channel is our smallest channel in Travel UK representing around 15% of revenue. It is an attractive market and has proven to be resilient, delivering a good performance in the year despite the ongoing impact of industrial action. We have seen a very encouraging return of passengers with leisure and weekend passengers recovering the fastest. We know from our segmentation and return on space analysis that leisure is our most valuable customer segment. We continue to invest in Rail in new formats and in new opportunities to meet landlord and customer needs. During the year, we successfully completed the refit of our London Paddington store to a one-stop-shop format, extending our health and beauty ranges from 1 metre of space to 8 metres of space and allocating more space to tech. This has been very well received by customers and driven strong sales. **_curi.o.city_** In line with our strategy to develop our retail formats, we have recently launched a new premium souvenir and gifting brand, curi.o.city. This new concept demonstrates how we are able to adapt, innovate and create a bespoke, localised brand and product offer. In addition to providing a new shopping experience for travellers, this format also offers an incremental sales opportunity in locations where we already have a WHSmith store by selling high margin categories such as souvenirs and fashion stationery, freeing up space in our traditional news, books and convenience stores. We now have 6 stores open at London Gatwick airport, Bristol airport, St Pancras station and Selfridges in Birmingham and Manchester. It is still early days, but we also see opportunities outside the UK with 2 curi. o.city stores also due to open in Dubai later this year. As at 31 August 2023, Travel UK had 588 stores (2022: 587). **_NORTH AMERICA_** In North America we also saw a good performance as passenger numbers continued to recover. We opened a further 43 stores and closed 14 stores increasing market share and improving the quality of our space. Total revenue was up 32% for the year and up 17% in the second half. This performance was driven by our core MRG airport business (which is now approximately 50% of the revenue of our North American division) which performed strongly across the year and continues to do so. We are seeing passenger number growth and strong demand for our travel essentials categories. In our smaller businesses we saw a lack of new launches in the electricals market in the second half which impacted InMotion (and this has continued into this financial year) and in our Las Vegas resorts business we were up against a strong 2022 summer performance when there was an exceptional number of vacationing visitors. Overall, our North American business is trading well with total revenue in the first 9 weeks of the financial year up 15%^(3) and is as such well placed for growth this year and beyond. Headline trading profit^(1) was £49m (2022: £31m), reflecting the strong recovery in passenger numbers, improved margins and a small beneficial impact of currency. The Group is exposed to movements in the GBP:USD exchange rate. A 5 cent move in this rate results in a c.£2m to £3m movement in annual Headline trading profit^( 1). Current company compiled consensus suggests an average exchange rate of GBP: USD of 1.25. Our North America business has become an increasingly significant part of the Group and is now our second largest division in profit terms, after Travel UK. The growth prospects are substantial and we are excited by the significant opportunities to grow this business further. Over the last two years, we have won an additional 62 new stores. The US is the largest travel retail market in the world with annual revenue of c. $3.8bn^(7). Our analysis of the North American market shows that there were a total of approximately 2,000 news and gift and specialty retail stores across the top 70 airports, giving our North America business a market share of c.13%^(8). During the year, we have improved our rate of winning new tenders and anticipate a large amount of space to come onto the market over the medium term. As a consequence, we are in a strong position to significantly grow our North America market share to around 20% over the next five years. We have applied our forensic approach to retailing from the UK to the North American market and are seeing good results. This includes, space management, category development to change the mix to higher margin products such as food to go, enhanced promotional activity and increased operational efficiencies, for example, self-scan tills which we are rolling out across the estate. We continue to grow our North American business at pace, opening 43 stores in the year at Newark, Phoenix, Orlando, Nashville, Washington Ronald Reagan, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles airports. In Kansas City airport, we have won 85% of the retail space comprising 8 stores, all of which are open. We are seeing strong returns. We still have a very strong pipeline of new store openings. In the year ending 31 August 2023, we won 40 stores, including stores at Salt Lake City, Boston, San Diego, Portland, Oakland and Las Vegas airports, as well as 11 stores in Canada, across Calgary and Edmonton airports. We expect to open over 50 stores in this financial year and close 6. Including the 43 store openings in the year, we now have 231 stores in Air (including 123 InMotion stores), 95 stores in Resorts, and 1 in Rail. **_REST OF THE WORLD_** We saw a good recovery in the year from the ROW division with total revenue up 99% and LFL revenue up 53% on the prior year. Our strategy for this division is clear: to continue to enter new countries, better understand the market, build our presence from a small base, build global supplier relationships and drive operational leverage to deliver higher returns. The scalability of WH Smith’s retail formats is now evident having entered 28 new countries since we opened our first international stores in 2008 and we see significant market share opportunities for the division. Utilising our expertise from our North America division to localise our retail offer, combined with our current low market share, means there is significant opportunity to grow this business in new and existing territories through our traditional NBC retail proposition and with technology tenders under the InMotion brand. We will continue to use our three operating models of directly run, joint venture and franchise, in order to maximise value and win new business. We have also had another very successful year in winning new stores with 30 new stores won across the division. During the year, we opened 55 new stores, including stores in Belgium, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, Spain and Sweden. We closed 28 mainly small, franchised stores. ^(7) 2019 ACI Factbook, increased by CPI ^(8) Based on store numbers; including stores won and yet to open Outside of the NBC market, we continue to see good opportunities to win new business in the tech accessories market under our InMotion brand. InMotion is now a globally recognised brand with interest coming from all over the world. During the year, we have won 3 InMotion stores in Italy. We have won a total of 13 InMotion stores outside of the UK and North America, of which 10 are open. We remain well positioned to benefit from further opportunities as more space becomes available. We now have 338 stores of which 50% are directly-run, 9% are joint venture and 41% are franchise. During the current financial year, we expect to open 40 stores and close 12 stores. **_Total Travel stores_** During the year, we opened 118 stores in Travel. As at 31 August 2023, our global Travel business operated from 1,253 stores (2022: 1,196). As part of our strategy to improve the quality of our space, we closed 61 stores in the year, largely smaller, less well located stores. Excluding franchise stores, Travel occupies 1.1m square feet. See page 15 for analysis of store numbers by region. | **No. of stores** | At 31August 2022 | Opened | Closed | **At 31****August 2023** | | Travel UK | 587 | 20 | (19) | **588** | | North America | 298 | 43 | (14) | **327** | | Rest of the World | 311 | 55 | (28) | **338** | | **Total Travel** | 1,196 | 118 | (61) | **1,253** | **HIGH STREET** During the year, High Street delivered a good performance with Headline trading profit^(1) of £32m, in line with expectations (2022: £33m), and revenue of £469m( 2022: £473m). We managed the business tightly, keeping focused on costs and cash generation. The strategy we have in place in our High Street business is as relevant today as it has ever been with a focus on delivering robust and sustainable cash flows and profits. We utilise our space to maximise returns in ways that are sustainable over the longer- term. We have extensive and detailed space and range elasticity data for every store which we use to allocate space in categories. Driving efficiencies remains a core part of that strategy and we continue to focus on all areas of cost in the business. During the year, we have delivered savings of £15m and we are on track to deliver savings of £21m over the next 3 years, of which £10m are planned in the current financial year. These savings come from right across the business, including rent savings at lease renewal (on average 50% over the last 12 months) which continue to be a significant proportion, marketing efficiencies and productivity gains from our supply chain. Over the years, we have actively looked to put as much flexibility into our store leases as we can, and this leaves us well positioned in the current environment where rents are falling. The average lease length in our High Street business, including where we are currently holding over at lease end, is under 2 years. We only renew a lease where we are confident of delivering economic value over the life of that lease. We have c.480 leases due for renewal over the next 3 years, including over 100 where we are holding over and in negotiation with the landlord. The store closure process is cash neutral. As at 31 August 2023, the High Street business operated from 514 stores (2022: 527) which occupy 2.5m square feet (2022: 2.5m square feet). 13 stores were closed in the year (2022: 17). Funkypigeon.com delivered, as expected, total revenue of £32m (2022: £35m) and Headline EBITDA^(1) of £5m (2022: £8m). We continue to see opportunities to grow the platform further, growing revenue and profits over the medium term. **ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE (‘ESG’)** We have excellent sustainability credentials and we continue to make good progress. We are one of the top performing specialty retailers in Morningstar’s Sustainalytics ESG Benchmark and, during the year, we were awarded an AA from MSCI ESG ratings. In addition, we were included, once again, in the Dow Jones World Sustainability Index, awarded an A rating in CDP’s annual climate leadership survey as well as being rated as Prime by ISS. We have set our target to achieve net zero by 2050 and are working with our supply chain to help reduce emissions across our value chain. The need for literacy support is as important as ever and we continue to invest in our partnership with the National Literacy Trust. Over the course of the next year, we will be sponsoring a new reading hub in Swindon as part of their Early Years Matter campaign. We have made excellent progress in the year to further support our colleagues’ journeys. We now have 5 employee networks focusing on Pride, gender, parents and carers, disability, and race and culture. All of these networks are sponsored by members of our Executive team and are encouraging an open and honest forum for colleagues to drive positive change within the business. In addition, we have launched a new mentoring scheme in the year focused on fostering female talent within our organisation. Share on: