Smythson’s results for the year to late March are in and they show the high-end leathergoods and stationery business with lower turnover but its loss for the period narrowing significantly.
Smythson
Before getting into the detail of what happened, let’s look at the numbers. Turnover dropped to £23.29 million from £27.26 million although the cost of sales also contracted. Gross profit fell to £16.6 million from £19.6 million and the operating loss was sharply smaller at £283,000 compared to a negative £5.9 million in the previous year. That narrowing was reflected in the pre-tax and net loss that both came in at £1.037 million compared to a loss of £6.632 million in the prior year.
So what was behind those figures? Clearly the backdrop was turbulent. The company said that during the period the UK economy was volatile. Internationally, advanced economies saw modest growth while emerging markets grew faster.
But that growth was clearly not enough for the business and at the beginning of 2025 it was still seeing growth below historical norms, mainly due to the impact of US tariff uncertainties and other global issues.
In fact, uncertainty in international markets has persisted with no sign of a slowdown, the company said.
And it added that customer behaviour has also changed with more of a focus on digital shopping and product discovery. While high earners felt more secure and ready to spend, other consumers were more cautious.
Yet it bucked some trends in the market and saw the performance in its physical retail business improving with like-for-like growth up 31% versus the previous year. At the same time its digital channel underperformed slightly with an overall like-for-like decline of 4%. This was despite the UK online market growing by 3.6% while other online international markets all declined year on year.
Its B2B performance also slowed down with its corporate business declining by 8% and the wholesale business down 4%. This was due to the tightening of corporate gifting budgets and increased caution on inventory management in wholesale.
The company said its strategy has been to focus on having a healthy business even though it’s a smaller one, while continuing to drive EBITDA improvements.
The closure of its New Bond Street flagship light in FY24 may have seemed like a negative move, for instance, but resulted in a significantly improved income statement. It said it’s now in a better position to explore new locations, to open profitable stores and to increase the visibility of its brand. Investments in marketing to drive grand awareness are key, alongside user experience improvements on its website.
The company launched new campaigns last year and in July 20205 it was acquired from Jacques Bahbout’s Tivoli Group by Oakley Capital, a pan-European, mid-market private equity investor. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.
It will be targeting the “US, Japanese and European markets, whilst continuing to strengthen the UK home market”.
Since then it has opened a concession at Liberty in London as well as a pop-up at the Galeries Lafayette flagship in Paris.
