Revenue slips at Barclay family’s Very retail group

The retail operations of the Barclay family reported a decline in annual revenues as clothing and sports sales slipped.
Revenues at the Very Group, the owner of Littlewoods, fell 1 per cent to £2.13 billion in the 12 months to June 29 as it faced a “challenging environment”. Yet, earnings before deductions at the retailer rose to £267.6 million, up from £246.9 million in the 2023 financial year.
Very UK performed better than other parts of the group as sales in the year to June 29 increased 0.7 per cent to £1.84 billion. However, revenues at Littlewoods declined to £222.8 million during the 12 month period, down 12.2 per cent from last year.
Sales of electrical items at Very UK rose by 0.9 per cent during the year, with sales of toys, gifts and beauty products increasing by 3 per cent. Poor weather caused a 16.5 per cent decline in revenues from garden products, while fashion and sports sales dropped by 5.5 per cent.
Robbie Feather, the chief executive of the Very Group, said: “In a challenging environment, our results reflect a resilient retail performance that remained ahead of the UK online non-food market, as well as a continued strong Very Finance performance.
“This top line resilience coupled with our continual focus on strong cost management, has driven robust earnings growth in the year.”
Very generates about 90 per cent of its sales from items paid for in monthly instalments using its consumer finance product. The group repackages the loans into a securitisation facility.
Its finance division reported a 3.1 per cent increase in annual revenues to £435 million, helped by a 2.3 per cent increase in the group’s average debtor book.
The Liverpool-based retailer benefited from a rise in shoppers during the pandemic but has since reported a fall in sales following a decline in consumer spending.
Very is an online retailer formed by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay after their acquisitions of the Littlewoods catalogue business and the home shopping division of Great Universal Stores. It offers “buy now, pay later” finance on its ranges of clothing, home and beauty products and is a pillar of the Barclays’ remaining corporate assets.
In February Very Group took on £125 million of new debt funding from Carlyle Global Credit and IMI, which the company said was designed to support future growth. In June the former UK chancellor Nadhim Zahawi was appointed as the new chairman of the group.
Sir Frederick and the late Sir David Barclay started out as property entrepreneurs and went on to build a business empire spanning newspapers, real estate, retail and hotels. The family has now started offloading assets, including Yodel, the logistics group, as well as their media titles.