The group said its market share of core retail spend grew 50 basis points, reaching 15.8% in the quarter, but group gross profit sank 2% to $223.3m due to a lower group gross profit margin of 31.4%, down 140 basis points.
Shares in the Warehouse rose 1.27% to $0.80, up 1c with 41,220 shares trading hands to the value of $33,415.69.
Devon Funds Management head of retail Greg Smith said the result was encouraging for the business.
“They’ve been experiencing the pointy end of it in terms of the retail sector and they’ve probably been clear obvious laggards, and feeling the effects of the cut back to discretionary spending,” Smith said.
“Noel Leeming, which is a poster child for the pullback in discretionary spending we’ve seen, you think about TVs and the like, that was up 4.5% so that was really encouraging.”
The comparison with Briscoe Group was interesting to Smith, which also referred to an unusually warm autumn, reflecting the trends facing companies across the same verticals.
Yesterday Briscoe Group announced its sales fell 2.58% on the year to $178.3 million in the first quarter, weighed down by weaker homeware sales.
Its share price rose 1.58% today to $4.51, up 7c with 34,908 shares trading hands to the value of $156,678.60.
Another share of interest with movement today was ANZ Bank which reported its half year result.
The NZ arm of the bank raised its cash net profit by 1% to $1.161 billion in the six months to March 31 compared with the same year-ago period, reflecting the state of the economy and flat costs.
Against the six months to September 30, 2024, the profit was a 3% improvement.
The bank’s statutory net profit was $1.277b, up 21% over the September six-month period, driven by $116 million from economic hedges.
“I think the New Zealand business lifted margins slightly, whereas the Aussie business, the group saw margins fall. In that regard New Zealand outperformed, but the profit didn’t.”
“It certainly it looks like the group in ANZ is getting squeezed with higher deposit rates, but the New Zealand business seems to have struck somewhat of a bit of balance.”
Shares in ANZ fell 1.85% to $31.80, down 60c with 13,091 shares trading hands to the value of $417,557.62.
Wall Street stocks finished higher Wednesday following a choppy session as the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged, while Google-parent Alphabet tumbled on worries about its namesake search engine.
The Fed, as expected, announced another pause in rate cuts amid uncertainty over the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariff plans.
Stocks meandered during a press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell in which the central bank chief reiterated his independence from the White House and pointed to a “great deal of uncertainty” about tariffs and the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.7% at 41,113.97.
The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.4% to 5,631.28, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.3% at 17,738.16.
– Additional reporting AFP
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
