Specialty retail group,
Axia's main operating business units are the country's leading furniture and electronic appliances retailer -- TV Sales & Home (TVSH), Distribution Group Africa (DGA) and Transerv.
During the year under review the business environment remained volatile due to Covid-19, which resulted in reduced business hours with the retail services closed for almost the whole month of April in compliance with lockdown regulations.
"The operating environment was volatile and presented a number of challenges characterised by the weakening
"These challenges necessitated management to pro-actively refine business models as a way to manage ever-changing operating costs, working capital levels as well as protect the business units' balance sheets in real terms. Resultantly, the group's business units were resilient despite these adverse factors and this helped the group to record a fair performance," said
He said the implementation of various stages of lockdown in the country had a negative impact on retail operations.
Said
As a result, total group revenue went down by a marginal 1 percent to
Basic earnings per share and headline earnings per share both improved by 494 percent and 481 percent respectively.
Net borrowings decreased by
At TV Sales & Home turnover was 11 percent below the prior year, with volumes 23 percent below prior period. Credit sales were a strong driver of volumes in the first half of the financial year, but were later suspended after the Covid-19 outbreak.
Turnover for DGA operations was down 16 percent with operating profit also down from the comparative period. Volumes were 31 percent below the prior year and this led to a decline in turnover as the consumer spending power was negatively affected by the economic challenges. Operating costs were under control and this resulted in the business being able to maintain its profitability levels against prior year.
On the other hand, DGA regional operations reported a fairly decent set of results with consolidated turnover going up by 11 percent over the prior year in US$ terms.
"The operating environments in both
Copyright The Herald. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source