Shoe Zone (AIM:SHOE) – nice set of results from the value footwear retailer
The AIM quoted specialist value footwear retailer (www.shoezone.com) with 545 stores and a relatively recent arrival on AIM (May 2014 at 160p), issued positive preliminary results for the 52 weeks ended 4 October 2014.
While revenue reduced by 10.8% to £172.9m this reflected the planned closure of a number of temporary stores. The oroduct gross margin strengthened to 61.3% from 59.4% last year. Profit before tax excluding exceptional items increased by 124% to £11.4m and eps was 18.0p The cash coffers were boosted with the net operating cash inflow £13m on operating profit of £10.6m. Cash at year end was £9.1m due to a number of pre-ipo distributions. There was a maiden dividend of 3.6p per share equating to a yield of 1.5% at the current share price. The forecast for 2015 is for…