German apparel marketer, Tom Tailor Group said despite a difficult market environment, it was able to achieve sales growth of 3 per cent year on year in 2014.
Tom Tailor Group was able to hike sales to €932 million in 2014 as against €907.2 million in 2013, up 3 per cent.
However, EBITDA for the reporting year rose by more than 10 per cent compared to the previous year and achieved its recurring EBITDA margin target of between 9.2-9.7 per cent.
During the year under review, the Group primarily drove forward, activities relating to the further development of the organisation and improving sales quality at Bonita brand.
In addition, the Group also focused on increasing profitability and for the first time following the acquisition of Bonita in 2012, the apparel marketer generated a positive net income again.
“We have developed quite successfully in a very challenging market environment and continued to grow and return to a positive net income in 2014,” CEO Dieter Holzer said.
Wholesale segment sales rose higher by around 9 per cent to more than €331 million from €302.4 in the previous year.
“This positive development was driven by 417 new shop-in-shops, 9 new franchise stores as well as 1,005 additional multi-label partners,” Tom Tailor Group said.
Furthermore, activities with existing and new international online business partners were significantly expanded. The segment increased its gross profit margin compared to the previous year.
During 2014, Tom Tailor brand retail sales too hiked by 8 per cent from 2013 through its 382 Tom Tailor stores and ecommerce, thus achieving sales of around €275 million.
On a like-for-like basis, Tom Tailor brand retail grew sales 1.4 per cent and once again outperformed the German textile industry, which finished the year 2014 with a decline of 3 per cent year on year.
However, due to the promotional market environment, gross profit margin came in below the previous year’s level.
In 2014, the Bonita brand concentrated on providing a more sharply-defined profile in terms of product and brand identity, while improving sales quality, promotions were therefore intentionally scaled back.
“2014 sales at Bonita fell back by 7 per cent from last year to €326 million in line with expectations, while like-for-like sales dipped as expected by 9.9 per cent”, Tom Tailor Group said
“In 2014, gross profit margin at Bonita expanded significantly by more than 5.5 percentage points and is set to grow profitably again in 2015," Dieter Holzer added.
