Britain's top health and beauty retailer Boots posted an 11 per cent fall in annual profits as it overhauls group structure and revamps stores and the supply chain to reverse a flagging sales trend.
Boots, which warned on profits in March and announced the sale of its successful healthcare products business a month later, said pretax profits came in at £481 million, slightly beating analysts' forecasts of £477 million.
Same-store sales at the core Boots The Chemist (BTC) pharmacy chain grew 2.4 per cent, while local currency sales at the Boots Healthcare International (BHI) products unit were 5.8 per cent up in the year.
But trading remains tough and the first few weeks of the new financial year had confirmed that demand on the British high street remained subdued, Chief Executive Richard Baker said in a statement today.
"We have seen nothing to suggest that we need to change our cautious planning assumptions for sales for the full year. Against this background, further progress will take time but we are making a real difference...," Mr Baker said.