Jobs galore at Mr Price

The retail group said on Wednesday that it plans to invest R1.5bn in the growth of its businesses over the next five years.

McArthur said while this means a lot of new stores, it also means a lot of new jobs - a further 8 000 new positions will be created over the next five years.

"We remain committed to our space expansion strategy we commenced five years ago, and we plan to invest more than R1.5bn in the growth of our business over the next five years," CEO Alastair McArthur said on Thursday.

In the 2007 financial year, the group grew space by 19% to 378 000 square meters and increased the number of stores from 761 to 829.

McArthur said in the first half of the current financial year, the Mr Price chain opened four 'Express' concept stores and it plans to convert 60 existing Mr Price Stores in similar small town locations.

He said that this would ensure further market penetration by trading in locations where the group did not currently have stores. It has also identified 70 new locations for the "Express" stores.

McArthur explained that these stores would be less than 500 square metres and that fixturing would cost up to 40% less. "Rentals in these locations were also significantly lower, often running at four times less than major shopping centres", he said.

Another Mr Price group store, Miladys, tested a stand-alone René Taylor store concept that caters for the fuller-figured woman. McArthur said that the first store was successfully launched in Pretoria in August and a second store was opened in October in Somerset Mall in the Cape, and that it is anticipated that further stores will follow across the country.

He also said that the Miladys store revamp programme continued in the current year and 60% of the stores now sport the new look.

Newly-opened Mr Price Sport has continued to expand. Twelve stores have already been opened and a further 11 stores are expected to open before Christmas. McArthur said Mr Price Sport is only a year old and has achieved sales of R82m in the half year. He expects it to achieve sales of about R300m for the year.

Turning to the rest of Africa, the group has also opened the first Mr Price Home franchise store in Nairobi, Kenya. It also has two Mr Price franchise-clothing stores in Zambia and Mozambique.

The group plans to test Mr Price Home and Sheet Street franchise stores in other southern African countries during the financial year.

"Our newer businesses are investments for tomorrow. While initially they do not contribute to profits, they will help us in future years to maintain our 21 year annual compound growth in headline earnings per share of 23%," concluded McArthur.

In the six months ended September, Mr Price Group reported a 19% rise in diluted headline earnings per share to 77.5c. An interim distribution of 36.5c was declared - a cash dividend of 23c and a capital reduction out of share premium of 13.5c - up 20% on a year ago.

Operating profits grew 25% to R261.3m and retail sales grew by 22% to R3.3bn, with comparable sales growing by 11.3%.

- I-Net Bridge