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Birmingham Post
Birmingham Post
Business
Jon Robinson

Sales at Sofology pass £300m despite woes of owner DFS

Sales at Sofology jumped past the £300m mark during its latest financial year.

The DFS-owned company has posted a revenue of £304.9m for the year to June 30, 2022, up from the £269.2m it achieved during the same prior 12 months.

Its gross profits also increased from £112.8m to £121.3m.

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During the year Sofology opened seven new showrooms and is expecting to open at least two more during the next 12 months.

Sofology was founded in Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire, in 1974 and is now headquartered in Golborne.

The results have been included in the accounts for listed retailer DFS which has reported a big slump in profits and warned that the industry is facing a downturn as soaring bills mean fewer customers are in the market for a new sofa.

The business said its pre-tax profits dropped 43% to £58.5m in the financial year. Order numbers "softened markedly" in the last three months of that period as the cost-of-living crisis weighs on customers.

It was a grim year for the sofa seller, boss Tim Stacey said. The firm faced several different issues fed in part by the pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine.

"This has been the most operationally challenging year that we can remember, with industry-wide Covid-related supply chain issues, double-digit cost inflation on raw materials and ongoing colleague absence and skill shortages," Mr Stacey said.

The company warned that sales volumes across the industry could slump by 15% in the current financial year compared with pre-pandemic levels.

That would slash its profit to as little as around £20m, even as the business said that its revenue would continue to grow. That is the worst-case scenario that DFS presented to shareholders.

But perhaps more worrying for investors is the best-case scenario: a 5% drop across the industry. Even this - the most positive outlook - would see DFS profit fall to around £54mfor the year ending next June.

It is a rough forecast, which saw the company's shares drop around 13% shortly after markets opened in London. The business said it had "carefully absorbed" double-digit increases in costs into its prices.

"Looking forward, the UK furniture market continues to be challenging and the outlook for the sector remains uncertain given the macroeconomic environment," Mr Stacey said.

"From the fourth quarter of the year, we saw a reduction in the volume of orders, which we believe is consistent with the overall furniture retail market, although our elevated order bank will provide some resilience as we enter our 2023 financial year."

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