Major blow for Woolworths

The challenging economic environments in South Africa and Australia have seen Woolworths’ expected headline earnings take a hit.

The group noted that while its food business is thriving, weaker-than-expected performances of its apparel businesses in South Africa and Australia will impact headline earnings, which are now expected to be between 22% and 27% lower than the prior period.

In a trading statement for the 26 weeks ended 29 December 2024, the group’s turnover and concession sales increased by 5.7% and 6.2%, respectively.

Although discretionary spending remains constrained in South Africa, Woolworths said consumer sentiment is improving.

This comes amidst declining inflation, interest rate easings and the suspension of load shedding.

Australia has seen improved consumer sentiment and increased retail sector sales
during Black Friday, but high interest rates and elevated living costs hurt discretionary spending.

The group’s trading performance for the half reflects continued strong sales growth from its food business, with lower contributions from apparel businesses in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

The group said that the Fashion, Beauty and Home (FBH) and Country Road Group (CRG) businesses were undergoing major transformation, which severely impacted performance during the period.

Sales growth for the last eight weeks of the period softened to 4.3%, which was partly due to a shift in the trading calendar from the prior period.

Woolworths South Africa delivered turnover and concession sales growth of 9.1% for the period.

The food business saw turnover and concession sales growth of 11.4% and 7.3% on a comparable-store basis.

When excluding Absolute Pets, Food sales increased by 9.0%.

Online sales increased by 37.2%, contributing 6.4% of Food sales. This was driven by Woolies DASH, which saw sales growth of 49.2% for the period.

FBH turnover and concession sales increased by 2.5% and by 2.7% on a comparable-store basis.

Sales growth in the last eight weeks was constrained to 0.9% due to temporary delays in product flow arising from later supplier deliveries and systems changes at its distribution centre.

The Beauty business has sustained its momentum, delivering growth of 17.3% over the period.

The Woolworths Financial Services book decreased by 3.7% year over year to the end of December 2024 but increased by 1.0% when excluding the sale of part of the legal book.

The annualised impairment rate for the six months ended 31 December improved to 5.4% compared to 6.3% in the prior period.

Woolworths said that the CRG is currently in the midst of a major restructuring.

“Whilst the restructuring is on track to be completed ahead of the 2025 financial year end, this accelerated timeframe has necessitated increased internal focus during the period.”

“In addition, the apparel trading environment in Australia and New Zealand remains heavily promotional, driven by price-sensitive consumers.”

Amidst this, CRG sales declined by 6.2% over the period and by 7.8% on a comparable-store basis.

Financials

Following its sale of David Jones in 2023, the group retained its flagship property asset situated at
294 to 310 Bourke Street, Melbourne, Australia.

The property was held as an investment asset and leased back to David Jones on market-related terms.

The group has now disposed of the property for A$223.5 million (about R2.5 billion) and recognised the profit on the sale.

Due to the sale of the property, earnings per share are expected to be between 8.0% and 23.0%
(between 239.4 cents and 249.6 cents) higher than the prior period’s reported EPS of 202.9 cents.

However, the weaker-than-expected performances of the apparel businesses in both geographies resulted in negative operational leverage for the group.

Thus, headline EPS (HEPS) and adjusted diluted HEPS for the period are expected to be lower than the reported HEPS and adHEPS for the prior period: