Flying Brands, the owner of Flying
Flowers and Gardening Direct, has
fallen into the red after recording a pretax loss of
£210,000 in the first half of 2011, compared with a profit
of £1.39 million in the same period 2010. Sales slipped to
£15.8 million from £15.9 million last year. As a
result, the company has had to renegotiate its banking
arrangements, including the covenants on its main loan and
securing a short-term overdraft facility.
The company has also renegotiated its stake in online start-up
Dealtastic, reducing its shareholding from 50 to
25 percent after the directors decided the Dealtastic operation
could no longer be funded by the company’s cash flow.
In related news, Flying Brands has signed a deal with central
Scotland’s ITV franchise to create an STV-branded website
featuring a range of gardening products. The site is planned for
launch in 2012.
Hamleys, the toy retailer, saw EBITDA grow 21
percent in the year to 26th March-to £5.6 million. The
company said total sales fell 1.5 percent following the transfer
of operations in Denmark to a franchise model. Trading in the
current financial year, however, is robust, with Hamleys
recording a 14.5 percent rise in like-for-like sales in the UK
and Ireland for the 17 weeks to 23rd July. Following these
encouraging results, said Hamleys chief executive Gudjon
Reynnisson in a statement, the company plans to build on its
financial success and continue its “expansion plans in
existing and new markets”. In June, Hamleys completed a
refinancing with RBS, leaving it with a serviceable debt of less
than EBITDA.
Online retailer Amazon.com is gearing up to
launch in India, reports the Independent. The article goes on to say that
the US company “has already hired several key figures for
its Indian operation and has been recruiting software engineers,
IT specialists and other staff ahead of the launch”.
Also from the Independent, American retailer
Williams-Sonoma, which recently entered the
UK ecommerce space, is considering opening UK stores. The
retailer, which has 560 bricks-and-mortar stores in the US and
Canada, has appointed a UK retail property agent and intends to
open its first store early next year, writes the newspaper.
Students from the University of Worcester are documenting
changing fashion and lifestyle tastes by studying images from a
collection of Kay and Co catalogues dating back
to 1894, reports the BBC.
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