Shoppers Stop’s net profit rises while Pantaloon suffers

Shoppers Stop has reported 55 percent increase

in stand-alone net profit for the September quarter. And the reason behind the rise is positive like-to-like same store growth. Its net profit increased to Rs 9.91 crore from Rs 6.38 crore a year ago. Gross revenue increased by 23 percent to touch Rs 820 crores from Rs 666.4 crores. On a consolidated basis, the company reported a net loss of Rs 3.18 crore driven by its loss making hypermarket chain, Hypercity, which narrowed down from Rs 5.58 crore a year ago.

“We have seen a very impressive like-to-like growth of 15.5 percent in the second quarter. With the onset of the festive season, marked by Durga Puja in the east, the upbeat momentum is expected to continue into the next quarter on account of festivities of Dussehra, Diwali and Christmas,” says Govind Shrikhande, Managing Director of Shoppers Stop.

In Q2, Shoppers Stop added two new stores at Agra and Vadodara, two Clinique stores at Mumbai and Amritsar, two M.A.C stores at Bangalore and Amritsar and one HyperCity store at Vadodara. For the 2014 fiscal year, the company is targeting opening 12 new stores, of which 10 have already been opened.

On the other hand, Pantaloons Fashion and Retail reported a net loss of Rs 43.50 crores for the same quarter, from Rs 11.03 crores a year ago. Net sales increased 10.2 percent to Rs 481.22 crores from Rs 436.81 crores in the same period in the earlier year. Pantaloon’s board has announced the appointment of Pranab Barua as the Managing Director of the company with immediate effect. Barua served as the Non-executive Director on the board of the company.