A&F Hollister’s Irish stores make profit

The owners of US clothing labels Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch have not taken long to convert the frenzy that greeted the opening of their Dublin stores into profits.

According to accounts filed for the US-owned A&F Hollister Ireland Ltd, it recorded pre-tax profits of €457,063 as revenues almost doubled to €15.8 million for the 12 months to February this year.

Long queues of teenagers were present for the opening of Ireland’s first Hollister brand store at the Dundrum town centre in July 2011. This was followed by similar scenes at the opening of the first Abercrombie & Fitch store at Dublin’s College Green on November 1st last year.

The accounts show that the firm’s pre-tax profit of €457,063 in the 12 months to the end of February 3rd, 2013, follows a pre-tax loss of €692,494 the previous year.

Revenues at the firm increased by 93 per cent from €8.19 million in 2011 to €15.8 million in 2012.

The figures show that to fund the firm’s Irish operations in 2012 the firm got a €3 million cash injection from its parent. The injection resulted in the firm having shareholder funds of €7.1 million last year. This included €3.94 million in cash.

The firm’s lease charges last year increased from €1.6 million to €1.8 million.

Its expansion last year resulted in almost a tripling of the workforce from 127 to 335, with 315 working on a part-time basis. Staff costs increasing from €1.3 million to €3 million.

The accounts confirm handsome gross margins of 44 per cent, with a gross profit of €7 million on the €15.8 million revenues. Operating costs of €6.58 million resulted in an operating profit of €445,890.

The opening of A&F Hollister’s Irish stores is part of an overseas expansion by Abercrombie & Fitch with the opening of 40 new stores last year alone. The expansion has seen revenues from its overseas stores more than double in three years from $517 million in 2010 to $1.1 billion last year. Globally the corporation recorded an 8 per cent increase in revenues from $4.1 billion to $4.5 billion.