Year-ahead view more in focus than Christmas sales
With shares approaching an 80% gain in 2019, Next PLC (LON:NXT). was one of the least-predicted retail turnarounds of last year. After hesitant early steps, the 155-year old clothier’s multi-channel, multi-brand online strategy and painstaking rebalancing of bricks and mortar operations have been vindicated. The stock’s recent advance has been all the more surprising not just because of an—at the time—seemingly never-ending string of sales and profit misses linked to everything from unpredictable weather to fickle shoppers. The turnaround also raised eyebrows because Next’s semi-discretionary consumer sector is one of the most sensitive to potential impacts from Brexit uncertainty, as well as the inexorable march of retail flows away from the High Street and on to the Web.
As such, the £9.3bn group will be sharply in focus when it kicks off the seasonal sales reporting season for British retailers on Friday. A key point to remember: So long as Next maintains a pattern of high single- to double-digit online sales growth, the market is likely to continue to shrug off persistently tepid store sales. Below are some other key points to know and watch.
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