Total income reached 1,154.7 million euros, up 2.4%.

Adjusted EBITDA grew by 48% to 170 million euros.

Tendam’s online business – which has now overtaken the physical stores in terms of profitability – grew by 26%.

Gross margin has improved by 3.4 percentage points.

The Tendam brands’ loyalty programmes now have in excess of 22 million members.

Tendam, one of Europe’s leading fashion retailers operating in the specialised chain segment through the Cortefiel, Pedro del Hierro, Springfield, women’secret and Fifty brands, has announced today its results for its 2017/18 financial year, which runs from 1 March 2017 to 28 February 2018.

It has been a very positive year for Tendam, thanks to the successful consolidation of the measures in the management team’s strategic plan. These measures were aimed at the strategic repositioning of the Cortefiel and Pedro del Hierro brands, improving the profitability of the portfolio of physical stores, driving efficiencies, increasing productivity, rolling out new processes to safeguard margins and speeding up digital growth both in terms of sales and profitability using an omni-channel approach.

Total income for the 2017/18 financial year amounted to 1,154.7 million euros, up 2.4% on the previous financial year and despite the closure of non-performing stores. Like-for-like sales increased by 4.8%.

Adjusted EBITDA grew by 48% during the period to reach 170 million euros (versus 114.6 million in 2016/17). The improvement in EBITDA is thanks to a combination of factors: an increase in Sales, an improved Gross Margin of 3.4 percentage points and lower operating expenses.

The online business has posted strong sales growth (+26%), as well as improved profitability, which has now overtaken the physical store channel. At the end of the 2017/18 financial year, the online channel represented 6% of Tendam’s total sales.

The Company is back in positive territory, posting Net Profit of 98.6 million euros for the period. These results relate to Tendam Fashion, the parent company of Tendam Retail (formerly Grupo Cortefiel and subsidiaries), for the 2017/18 financial year.

Tendam CEO, Jaume Miquel stated: “The 2017/18 financial year is the first full period to reflect the impact of the strategic plan implemented across Tendam to meet our objectives. As a result, all our markets, channels and brands have seen positive like-for-like growth and improved profitability.

Tendam now has a solid financial situation which, coupled with the Company’s strong performance over the past year, ensure confidence in future growth”, added Miquel.

The loyalty schemes and programmes have continued to grow and now have in excess of 22 million members (22.6 million members across all the company’s brands, a rise of 8.5%).

At the end of the period, the Group’s net debt was down to 514.5 million euros.

At 28 February 2018, Tendam had 1,988 points of sale (versus the 1,982 at 28 February 2017) in close to 90 countries, of which 1,180 are owned stores, 692 franchise operations and 116 department store corners. Over the past financial year, the Group opened points of sale in Qatar, Cuba, Slovenia, Spain, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, Portugal, Russia and the Dominican Republic, among others. Norway, Cuba, India, the Republic of Mauritius and the Island of Réunion are all new markets for the Group.