Challenging times for Scotmid, but the Society is still in a strong position. The Society's Annual & Interim Reports from the past 5 years can be viewed here...
Interim Results 29 September 2011
- Turnover increases by £32m to £210m
- Operating Profit for first half of new financial year of £2.6m
compared to £4.2m last year
- Net Assets remain strong at over £100m
- Integration of Botterills business going well and almost
complete
As predicted last April in its Annual Report, Scotmid has faced
an increasingly difficult marketplace and a resultant fall in
trading profit for the first half of the new financial year from
£4.2m to £2.6m.
The Society's turnover increased by £32m to £210m driven in the
main by the acquisition last November of Botterills Convenience
stores.
John Brodie, Chief Executive of Scotmid said, "The key factor
driving the trading results was the deteriorating economic
environment, which overshadowed the impact of the strategic actions
last year which included the Botterills acquisition and the
disposal of our largest store. The acquisition of Botterills, which
is planned to enhance value in the longer term, is proceeding well
with the integration process ahead of plan.
"As I highlighted at the year end, Scotmid finds itself in a new
era of reduced consumer spending power and increasing costs such as
the increase in VAT. This has impacted on both our Food convenience
and Semichem businesses. Semichem in particular has found the High
Street market challenging especially in Northern Ireland.
"The Society's surplus before tax at the half year was £0.6m.
This was down £8.4m compared to 2010 mainly due to the one-off
exceptional profit from the sale of our Leith supermarket which
last year gave us a gain. This year we have the costs of the
Botterills integration.
"The Society, however, remains in a strong financial position
with assets of over £100m and other areas of the business such as
Funerals and our Property portfolio performing well. There has been
a focus on running the business tightly with a long-term view in
decision making to protect the interests of the Society.
"We continue to fine tune the democratic side of the Society and
the interest shown by active members in the North has enabled us to
advance the planning process for the establishment of a separate
North regional Committee.
"The markets in which we are operating are particularly
challenging, and as many commentators are suggesting there is
likely to be uncertainty for some time as the full austerity
measures have not yet come into play in Scotland.
"The ongoing focus on continuing improvement remains core to our
approach and we will continue to focus on the long term growth
opportunities while carefully managing the medium term market
turbulence."