Portmeirion Group PLC has announced its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2022, reporting a five per cent increase over 2021. The group includes brands such as Portmeirion, Spode, Wax Lyrical, Nambé, Royal Worcester and Pimpernel.
The Portmeirion Group reports:
| Record Group revenue of £110.8 million in the year to 31 December 2022, an increase of 5% over the prior year (2021: £106.0 million) and 19% over pre Covid-19 level (2019: £92.8 million). |
| Headline operating margin increased from 7.2% to 7.8% and the Group reiterates its long-term ambition to improve the operating margin to 12.5%. |
| Excellent Christmas and Thanksgiving trading period with strong demand across our portfolio of consumer goods brands. |
| Sales from online platforms continue to grow despite physical retail stores reopening, and now represent 51% of total sales in core UK and US markets in the year to 31 December 2022 (2021: 50%, 2019: 30%). |
| Headline profit before tax of £8.0 million now ahead of pre-Covid levels (2021: £7.2 million, 2019: £7.4 million). |
| Total dividends paid and proposed of 15.50p per share, a 19% increase over the prior year (2021: 13.00p, 2019: 8.00p), reflecting improved trading performance during the year. Final dividend proposed of 12.00p per share. |
| Inventory levels remain elevated at year end to avoid supply chain disruption and this is expected to normalise in 2023. |
| Strong balance sheet and significant headroom within current borrowing facilities. |
Mike Raybould, Chief Executive says: “I am delighted that our brands continue to resonate so well with customers around the world despite the tougher economic backdrop. We have benefited from our diversified, global sales geography with 75% of sales now outside of the UK. We saw strong sell through during our seasonal / Christmas trading with increased online penetration and successful new product extensions. Ongoing productivity improvements in our UK ceramic factory with the continued investment in automation, together with our long-term energy price hedge in place until Q1 FY24, helped us to mitigate higher input cost inflation and still grow operating margins.
We have a strong new product pipeline and look forward to launching our new product ranges over the next 18 months. Our ambition is to support and extend our key heritage ranges including Portmeirion Botanic Garden and Spode Christmas Tree as well as taking further share in contemporary product categories. We will launch our Spode tableware and giftware collaboration with leading British interior designer Kit Kemp in New York and London in April 2023. Trading for the first few months of 2023 remains in line with our expectations and we enter the new year with a healthy forward order book. We continue to focus on delivering on our significant long-term growth and margin improvement opportunity. The macroeconomic uncertainty looks to continue however our global diversification, strong balance sheet and encouraging customer outlook means we are well positioned for the year ahead.”
See the full statement HERE.
