Beaverbrooks has confirmed sales holding steady at £119 million in its latest accounts filed at Companies House.
Operating profit before discretionary payments dipped to £12.2m, compared to £15.2m in the the 12 months to the end of February this year.
Mark Adlestone OBE DL, chairman of Beaverbrooks, said that the Brexit vote’s impact on the value of sterling was the main contributor to the dip in profits, but was broadly satisfied with the performance.
“This period stands out as one with the most competitive trading conditions, so we were pleased to maintain turnover. We were adversely affected by the weakness of sterling following Brexit. We hadn’t anticipated this happening and therefore didn’t hedge accordingly and so this, alongside increasing precious metal prices, resulted in additional costs that impacted directly on gross profit,” he explains.
“Despite these pressures, we’ve continued our investment programme, opening two new stores in Straiton (in Edinburgh) and Westfield Stratford (in East London), refurbishing existing retail stores and investing in our website to enhance our online customer experience. We also invested significantly in our people through training and furthering our performance linked bonus structure,” Mr Adlestone adds.
Anna Blackburn, who has overseen three of three of the most profitable years in history for Beaverbrooks since she took over as CEO of Beaverbrooks, says that the group’s staff are key to its ongoing success.
“We’ve just had the three most profitable years in our history and have featured in The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For list for 14 consecutive years. We believe that our people-centric approach and focus on quality products and excellent customer service, is key to our financial success,” she says.
The 98-year-old business, which now has 71 stores across the UK, donates 20 per cent of post-tax and post distribution profits to its charitable trust, and has this year donated £1.076m.
All 940 employees are encouraged to support time-giving initiatives and 1,533 hours were paid to facilitate volunteering in 2016/17.
