Macintosh CEO: “Never before seen sales drop like this”

Almost no sales of summer shoes and
garden furniture

Sales of Macintosh Retail Group up
to 21 April 2013 were 36.2 million euro lower (-14%) than in the same period a
year earlier, says the company in its trading update. In Fashion there was a
drop by -16% to 164.3 million euro, with sales in all companies under pressure.
Dutch activities are the reason for almost half of the drop.

Sales of the Living sector dropped 7% to 57.8
million euro. When compared to the rest of the home decoration market, Kwantum
did not perform so badly though. “Bleak economic and climate
conditions resulted in a drop in turnover, the likes of which I have not yet
experienced in my career in the non-food retail sector.”, says CEO De Moor.

“The month of March and
the first few weeks of April, in particular, were extremely poor, owing to the
cold weather, as a result of which we hardly sold any summer shoes or garden
furniture”, allows the CEO to point to the awful winter – amongst others – in the Netherlands and Belgium.

“On a positive note, we were able to
offset part of the fall in turnover by maintaining our gross margin as a percentage
of turnover at the same level and considerably reducing our costs. Still, the start to 2013 is something best forgotten.” The CEO is comforted by the thought
that “indications are that the substantial drop in turnover in March was a
generic phenomenon in the markets relevant to Macintosh Retail Group.”

Better weather at last!

The better weather in April already had its positive effect on sales, says Macintosh: “We assume that there
will be some catch-up demand in the weeks to come. Nevertheless it is expected
that Macintosh Retail Group’s operating result for the first half of 2013 will
be lower than that for the first six months of 2012.” The company will announce
its half-year results on 25 July.

Macintosh also points to the fact
that the second half of the year traditionally is far more important for sales
than the first half, but it repeats what the company said earlier: “2013 would
be a transitional year in which the market was unlikely to recover.”