[ad_1]
Steinhoff’s share price soared 50% on Tuesday, following a business update from its European discount retail subsidiary, Pepco Group.
The group’s shares, which opened the stock at R1.58 on Tuesday morning, were changing hands at R2.38 by lunchtime.
Earlier in the week, Steinhoff announced that it was reviving plans to include the discount retailer. These had been suspended last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Pepco Group owns the PEPCO and Dealz brands in Europe and Poundland in the UK.
In its first quarter business update for 2021, Pepco Group said it continued to “trade with resilience” while increasing its total number of stores despite the pandemic.
Its total revenue for the first quarter was 1,188 euros, slightly above the same quarter of 2020 (1,143 euros). Like-for-like revenue growth was -2.1%.
Meanwhile, the group closed the last quarter with a total of 3,218 stores, up from 2809 at the end of the first quarter of 2020.
“Our revenue performance clearly indicates the strength of each of our retail brands and customer offerings and our resilience to short-term disruption from Covid,” said Andy Bond, CEO of Pepco, in a statement.
While Steinhoff’s share price soared to a multi-month high on Wednesday, its shares have still lost around 90% of their value since December 2017, when the group’s former chief executive, Markus Jooste, abruptly resigned. at the beginning of an accounting scandal that still continues. .
