Shoe Zone PLC (LON:SHOE) shares sank on Tuesday after the footwear retailer’s profits failed to budge in its first half.
The AIM-listed firm reported a pre-tax profit for the six months ended 30 March of £1mln, the same as the year before, while revenues dipped slightly to £73.0mln from £73.7mln and earnings per share slipped to 1.65p from 1.70p a year ago. The company maintained its interim dividend at 3.5p per share.
READ: Shoe Zone on the front foot as it posts record profit and issues positive outlook
Nick Davis, the company’s chief executive, said that the performance for the year had been in line with management’s expectations and that despite the overall dip the company had achieved revenue growth in its “key growth areas” of digital and its Big Box stores.
Looking ahead, Davis said that the company would focus on rolling out the Big Box stores, targeting a total of 45 by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, trading was in line with market expectations into the second half, Davis said, adding that he believes the firm was “favourably insulated” against many of the structural issues in the retail sector.
The company also got a vote of confidence from analysts at ‘house’ broker finnCap, which upped its target price for the firm to 240p from 230p saying the results had delivered on their expectations and demonstrated that Shoe Zone was making “strong progress” with building out of Big Box and digital growth strategies, which would allow it to evolve into “an omnichannel operator”.
“Overall, we continue to view SHOE as relatively well positioned strategically, whilst executing strongly within a challenged sector," they added.
Investors, however, were less impressed, with Shoe Zone shares falling 6.5% to 212.2p in early deals.