Brett Blundy’s fast fashion jewellery pedlar | Australian Markets

Brett Blundy’s fashion jewelry pedlar Lovisa Holdings is battling to put the bling on its formidable world growth as financial returns fall short of store growth.

Shares within the Melbourne-based fast fashion participant got here below stress on Monday after it unveiled a 6.5 per cent rise in half-year revenue to $56.9 million and income growth of 8.8 per cent to $405.9m.

This outcome for the six months to December 31 got here after store numbers jumped from 854 to 943, a growth of 10.4 per cent over 12 months, because it more than doubled its presence in Canada and constructed on its north-western European community.

A trading replace signifies its store efficiency is battling to keep up with inflation, with comparable shops gross sales up 3.7 per cent within the first seven weeks of the new calendar yr and whole gross sales up 12.9 per cent from the opening weeks of 2024.

Lovisa shares had been down more than 6 per cent by late morning.

That is regardless of chief government Victor Herrero saying the company had “once again been able to deliver solid sales and profit growth” and highlighting “outstanding” gross margins.

Mr Herrero credited the sturdy margin growth to a “focus on pricing and promotion management”.

“We will continue to focus on store profitability and action stores not delivering to required levels of return on investment,” he stated.

Lovisa’s gross revenue margin within the December half was 82.4 per cent — in contrast with 80.7 per cent a yr earlier.

This margin helped lifted gross revenue by 11.1 per cent to $334.67m, seemingly making essentially the most of income growth.

However Lovisa’s prices had been greater because it elevated its spend on digital advertising and marketing and occasions and battled with inflationary pressures.

Working bills had been up 11.3 per cent to $244.4m, with worker prices surging 11.8 per cent to $115.1m.

Property bills jumped 22 per cent to $24.7m because it elevated its store numbers in greater price areas.

Lovisa grew its Australian store numbers from 175 to 180 in 2024, lifted its French store rely from 80 to 88, and added six shops in each Germany and the UK to a whole of 53 and 57, respectively.

Lovisa added simply two shops within the US, taking its whole quantity to 209, whereas it grew Canadian shops numbers from 10 to 23.

Mr Herrero stated Lovisa continued to give attention to increasing its store and digital gross sales community, “with structures in place to drive this growth in existing and new markets and expect store rollout momentum to continue”.

It had opened 16 new shops since December 31, whereas closing two shops and relocating one store. This took the whole store rely to 956.