Brown Thomas and Arnotts returns to profit after €95.8m surge in revenues

Gordon Deegan

The company behind two of the best-known retail names in Ireland, Brown Thomas and Arnotts has this year returned to profit to record pre-tax profits of €8.94 million.

New accounts for Brown Thomas Arnotts Ltd show that the group returned to profit after revenues increased by €95.8 million  to €253.6 million in the 12 months to the end of January 29th this year.

The pre-tax profits of €8.9 million followed a rare pre-tax loss of €1.77 million in the prior year.

The business returned to profit this year after its ‘bricks and mortar’ retail stores were closed for only the first 14 weeks due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The accounts reveal that the business received €8.3 million in Government Covid-19 Wage Subsidy support payments during the year and this followed €6.1 million in Covid-19 Wage subsidy payments in fiscal 2021.

The directors report that a dividend of €300,000 was paid out in July 2021 and a further dividend of €800,000 was paid by the directors on May 20th of this year.

Brown Thomas Arnotts, which operates the stores in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway, was sold as part of the sale of the Selfridges group to Thai-headquartered Central Group and Austrian Signa Holding last December in a deal worth a reported €4.7 billion.

The directors for Brown Thomas Arnotts state that “future growth is planned by continued investment in the stores and increased investment in digital including the expansion into a larger store in Dundrum”. Dundrum opened on February 24th this year.

Numbers employed in the year under review increased by 188 from 1,104 to 1,292 made up of 701 part-time and 591 full time.

Staff costs this year increased by €12.2 million to €47.1 million.