TFG London and its brands Hobbs and Phase Eight reported their results a few days ago and now its Whistles chain has done likewise. And just like Phase Eight, it’s obviously faced some challenges in the year to late March 2025.
Whistles
The TFG-owned trio are moving in the right direction on many fronts but that doesn’t mean everything in the garden is rosy for contemporary womenswear label Whistles.
The company said that turnover during the year dropped to £57.7 million from £65.7 million and adjusted EBITDA dipped to £4.7 million from £5 million. Operating profit was down to £1.8 million from £2.5 million and profit after tax fell to £0.5 million from £0.9 million.
The company sells through its own stores, online and through department store concessions and operates both in the UK and internationally.
TFG noted a “steady performance for the year despite the ongoing challenging economic backdrop in the UK”. It added that Whistles grew its direct channel mix to 54.6% from 50% and while there was growth in its own channels, it underperformed in concessions where sales dropped 15% year on year. That reflects the performance at its stablemates Hobbs and Phase Eight with concessions also something of an issue for them during the year.
That was the main cause of Whistles’ 12% turnover drop, along with the fact that the company closed 19 stores while only opening five new ones. In fact, by the end of the financial year in the UK the company had 109 stores/concessions, down from 123 a year earlier.
But there was good news in that the gross margin was up at 69.9% from 67% due to that higher direct channel mix. The company’s distribution costs edged up but that was mainly due to a one-off warehouse move in March, the results filing said. Also good news is that administrative expenses were lower as a result of the drive to control costs.
We’ve reported other positive developments for Whistles towards the end of the year covered here, as well as post-year-end.
In early March this year it joined the ‘Brands at M&S‘ platform. That’s a hugely important move that puts it in front of millions more consumers. OK, it probably wasn’t positive overall in the early months of the deal due to the well-publicised cyberattack that took M&S offline for quite a few months. But it should have an overall beneficial effect longer term.
In April, it also appointed its very first creative director as it aimed to elevate and redefine its design direction and its overall creative vision.
Jacqui Markham joined after a career in which she’d been design director at Topshop and Topman, ASOS and Urban Outfitters Europe. She’d also been a designer at Oasis and Karen Millen and more recently was a freelance design consultant.
Her immediate boss at Whistles, product director Camille Sullivan, said she would be “instrumental in driving both the brand and our product offering forward in our next stage of growth”.
