El Corte Inglés increases sales and earns €512 million in the last year

BarcelonaThe department store chain El Corte Inglés closed the 2024-2025 fiscal year (from March 1, 2024, to February 28) with an increase in sales and profit, the company reported in a statement on Thursday. Thus, the group increased its net profit by 6.7% to €512 million, while turnover grew by 2% to €16.675 billion.

In the statement, the Madrid-based company stated that all business areas had performed "well" throughout the fiscal year, especially the retail division and the fashion and beauty division. The former is the largest contributor to the group's accounts and improved its revenue by 3.9% to €12.976 billion, while the fashion section closed the fiscal year with sales of €5.704 billion, 4.9% higher than the previous year.

Aside from these two, the food and hospitality division grew 4.8% to 3.044 billion euros, while the home and electronics division grew 3.4% to 2.697 billion euros. Regarding online commerce, total sales transactions recorded online grew by 33.5 million, to 891.7 million visits, and around 14.9 million registered customers, but the company has not provided revenue data for this channel.

Given the overall growth across all divisions and the strong performance of its own-brand products, the company has stated that this is due to "innovation" and "management efficiency," which allows it to face the current year with "good prospects." In fact, this last year represents an improvement compared to the previous year, in 2023-2024, when El Corte Inglés achieved its best result in fifteen years and left behind the years of difficulties caused by both the pandemic and the strong disputes between different branches of the founding family, which ended with the arrival of Marta Álvarez as president.

In addition, El Corte Inglés also reduced its debt by €263 million, bringing the company's debt level to €1.796 billion, equivalent to 1.5 times EBITDA (earnings before taxes, amortization, and interest).

Improvements also in subsidiaries

The Madrid-based company also highlighted the positive performance of its various subsidiaries in the note published this Thursday. For example, Viajes El Corte Inglés, the group's travel agency, reported revenues of €3.449 billion, representing a 4.3% increase and an EBITDA of €101 million. The group's financial subsidiary also improved on the previous year's figures with a 22.8% increase in net profit to €50 million, while the insurance company Seguros El Corte Inglés closed with earnings of €71 million, 8.6% higher than the previous year.

The company also highlights the €83 million in revenue from space leasing and partnerships with other collaborating companies, such as hairdressers, opticians, laundries, dental clinics, and car repair shops, among others.