A couple more corporate updates or confessions yesterday.
The Shaver Shop narrowed its earnings guidance for the current financial year, sending the shares up nearly 5% in a rare bit of good news from the retail sector (which yesterday was shown to have contracted in the first three months of the year in volume terms – see separate story).
The company told the ASX in an update that it was now looking at earnings of between $12.5 million and $14 million, against the previous guidance of it between $12 million and $14.5 million.
Underlying same-store sales jumped a solid 8.7% in the first four months of this year, up from 0.8% growth in the first four months of 2018, thanks to what directors said was “driven by strong overall performance in core hair removal categories and hair styling.”
Sales for the 10 months ending 30 April were up 2.6% on a same-store basis, but this excludes estimated Daigou reseller channel sales in Australia for China.
“I am very pleased that our like for like sales growth is predominantly being driven by a number of our core hair removal categories which is where our store teams excel,” CEO Cameron Fox said in yesterday’s statement to the ASX.
“Hairstyling, following the launch of the GHD range around the same time last year, is also performing very well.”
Shaver Shop shares ended up 3.755% at 42 cents.
But not so upbeat news from pokies maker, Ainsworth with the shares falling 9% to a day’s low of 76 cents after weak news on the sales and earnings front.
The shares slid after it told the market that it now expects the second half of the current financial year to be lower than it told the market on February 26 in the interim report to the market.
They later recovered to be down 1.2% at 83 cents.
Pre-tax profit will be about $4 million and has been “impacted by intense competitive market pressures and delays encountered in new product approvals which were not achieved in the expected timeframes”, directors said.
Ainsworth expects the approvals soon, which it thinks will boost market share gains in 2019-20.
It will also take an impairment on its Australian and digital assets of $5 million, due to the lower sales in NSW and a $2 million reduction in the value of 616 Digital.
“Continued progress within the Americas has partially offset this lower than expected contribution from Australia in H2FY19, with North America expecting a similar and Latin America a slight increase in their respective segment results compared to H1FY19,” directors told the ASX.
