Warm weather cools Warehouse Group's profits
SUPPLIED
Warm weather has melted The Warehouse Group's profit forecast.
The company has revised
its pre-tax profits
lower to a range of a $5 million loss to a $5 million profit for the year ending 3 August.
The company - known for its Red Sheds, Stationary and Noel Leeming brands - blamed low consumer confidence and a delayed winter for impacting winter sales, which had forced it into heavy discounting.
Nonetheless, interim chief executive John Journee said sales strengthened as soon as colder weather arrived.
"Now that the cold has set in, our sales momentum has returned with Q4 to date sales ahead of the same period last year," he said.
Despite the "encouraging" news, Journee said "the current market conditions are impacting margins", leading to the earnings downgrade.
The group said the timing of New Zealand's economic recovery
remained uncertain
, weighing on consumer discretionary spending.
The company will release its full-year results on 2 October.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter
curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
23 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Airwork Group grounded: Russian seizures and growing debt sink NZ aviation firm
Photo: lenor/123RF Long-established air freight company Airwork Group has been placed into receivership. Airwork, whose New Zealand roots trace back to 1936, has a fleet of Boeing 737 freighters and operates an air freight, maintenance, and aircraft leasing business. The company was briefly listed on the stock exchange in 2013 before a Chinese company, Zhejiang Rifa Holdings, took it private in 2017. Brendon Gibson, Daniel Stoneman and Neale Jackson of Calibre Partners were appointed as receivers. They said the move was made after a shareholder breached the company's banking facilities during the sale of the business. "This step has been taken to facilitate a structured process to identify a new owner for the business," Gibson said. "The trading performance of the business underpins the strategy to continue to trade with the support of the financiers, customers, and key suppliers with a view of immediately commencing a going-concern sale process for the New Zealand and Australian businesses and assets." In recent years, Airwork racked up hundreds of millions of dollars of losses after five of its six Boeing 757 freighter aircraft were trapped and illegally seized in Russia after the country invaded Ukraine. That forced the company to write off its value, and it became trapped in litigation with its insurers. The company sold its helicopter operations in 2022 and has since sold several surplus aircraft and engines to try and stay afloat. More recently, Airwork defaulted on a USD$83.5 million bank loan. The company employs around 180 people in New Zealand and Australia. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
26 minutes ago
- RNZ News
How to keep cooking costs down when prices are jumping
A price tag of more than $80 for just over 3kg of prime New Zealand lamb is a little too rich, even for a former chef who devoted decades to fine dining. According to Stats NZ in the past year food prices have gone up four-point-four percent. That's the biggest jump since December 2023. Tony Astle ran the legendary Auckland fine dining restaurant Antoines in Parnell for almost 50 years. He spoke to Lisa Owen about how to keep cooking costs down. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Datacom posts $37m profit amid tough year - bets big on AI
Photo: RNZ / Calvin Samuel One of the country's biggest local IT companies, Datacom, has posted an improved full-year result in what it calls a challenging market. Its net profit for the year ended March was $37 million compared to $34m the year before, as it increased revenue marginally to $1.48 billion with new business won in the Australian government sector. "A notable reduction in customer spend in the New Zealand market, continued momentum in the Australian market helped offset this, resulting in an overall positive result for the group," chief executive Greg Davidson said. He said many organisations had pushed "pause" on key technology projects, and small New Zealand businesses had had a difficult year. Datacom managed operations to match variable demand, such as call centres, and its overall staff numbers had been reduced by about 12 percent to 5,375, while it also moved to significantly reduce debt. Davidson said Datacom was moving to embed artificial intelligence in its operations and use it to help customers, especially those still using old "legacy systems", which he said was the Achilles' Heel of many organisations. "AI is the single biggest and most significant technology shift that we've seen in decades. The opportunities around AI are almost endless." As an example, he said Datacom was using AI to write new code at a cheaper price and in a quicker time, but greater use and industry commitment to high standards for adoption and ethical use were needed. "Ensuring we embrace AI at pace is critical to achieving economic growth." "However, it's important that we don't lose sight of the people and communities this technology is meant to serve, or the impact that lack of planning and thought around future demand will place in terms of energy supply and in-country processing capability." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
