The UK’s largest shopfitter has unveiled what can only be termed as a catastrophic set of results — but Styles & Wood’s 23 per cent fall in sales also means is that retailers are still handing out 77 per cent of the fit-out contracts that they were in the prior year.
This week the UK’s largest shopfitter, Styles & Wood, unveiled what can only be termed as a catastrophic set of results, perhaps confirming why the company decided not to awards its previous management a pay-off when they finally walked, in December.
In fairness, embattled chief executive Ivan McKeever has worked hard, and it would appear is doing that which should have been done earlier, shoring up relationships with retailers and ensuring that margins are kept more or less where they should be.
This is a company that has worked with almost all of the major retailers in one form or another and as such is represents a good straw in the wind when it comes to assessing the state of the market. And what is says, at first glance, is that things are bad. But what it also points towards is concerted action with practical measures being implemented that will Styles & Wood’s management hopes will see it through the recession.
Just as importantly, a sales fall of £72 million, to £243 million for the year to December 31, or put another way, a decline of 23 per cent, provides a fair indication of what’s happening in retail. The figure sounds a lot, but for Styles & Wood, and presumably others, what it also means is that retailers are still handing out 77 per cent of the fit-out contracts that they were in the prior year.
Whether the business in question is a retailer or a shopfitter, it is broadly true that the larger the organisation, the less its chances of suffering a terminal decline in the event of customers not appearing in the numbers that might be hope for. And so it goes with Styles & Wood. It has however taken a major upheaval for the restructuring wheels to be set in motion.
Now think about the number of new shops that you’ve seen this year. Not many really. This is the point at which store chiefs are retrenching with regard to store development programmes, but they still need to keep existing estates up to scratch. The current mantra must be refurbishment and renewal, not new. All of which means that providing fat margins are not anticipated, there is still work to be done.
Like the retailers they serve, shopfitters and designers are being hit hard and none of them are saying that business is where it should be. That said, for those in the game, commercial survival is still very much on the cards.
No comments yet