On Thursday of next week, 19th September, the owner, designer, manufacturer and ‘omnichannel’ retailer of leading homeware brands in global markets, will be reporting its Interim Results for the six months to end-June.
Despite sales expected to be down some 17%, hit mainly by lower sales in its Korean market, the group.
CEO Mike Raybould stated that:
"We are pleased with the progress we are making in the US, our largest sales market, with improving sales and higher gross margins and also the continued strong growth recovery in Wax Lyrical, although consumer markets remain uncertain around the world.
We are also encouraged by our advance US orders for Christmas which remain significantly ahead of last year.
In South Korea, following a significant stock refill in 2022 and first half 2023, the more recent consumer slowdown has resulted in distributors and retailers needing to reduce high stock levels.
This has impacted short term orders for this market however we are confident that our Portmeirion brand remains ever popular with the end consumer as evidenced by healthy, growing online channel sales in the market.
The benefits of our cost restructuring are on track, and this supports our commitment to growing our operating margins in the short and long term and we believe that our increasingly distributed brands are well placed to grow in the medium and long term."
Analyst Sahill Shan at Singer Capital Markets rates the shares as a Hold, with a Price Objective of 250p.
His estimates for the current year to end-December, are for lower sales of £100.0m (£102.7m) but with adjusted pre-tax profits 50% higher at £4.5m (£3.0m), lifting earnings up to 24.5p (22.4p) and paying a 7.02p (5.5p) dividend per share.
Over the next two years, he sees sales rising to £105.3m then £110.6m, helping to jack profits up to £7.2m then £9.4m, hoisting earnings to 39.1p then 51.1p and dividends to 12.03p then 17.05p per share respectively.
Over at Shore Capital Markets, analyst Rob Sanders has broadly similar estimates.
However, he has a 56.1p per share estimate for 2026, which, if achieved, could see the group’s shares double in price from the current 223p.
With the Interims, I look forward to next week’s accompanying trading news, which hopefully could help the shares to stage some elements of price recovery.
I remain positive about the group and my 295p TP stays firmly intact.
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