Bensons for Beds still in the red as fewer customers visit stores

Bensons for Beds cut its losses as sales passed £250m during its latest financial year, new detailed accounts have revealed.

The Lancashire-headquartered company, which is backed by Alteri Investors, posted pre-tax losses of £19.9m for the year to September 30, 2023, down from £30.2m.

The results, filed with Companies House, also show that its revenue increased from £239.4m to £257.4m over the same period.

In a statement released to the media, Bensons for Beds said it achieved an EBITDA profit of just over £1.5m, having racked up losses of £15.4m in the prior year.

The full accounts come after Bensons for Beds issued a statement in November 2023 stating that it had returned to profitability during its latest financial year.

During the year, the average number of people employed by the company increased from 1,851 to 1,874.

A statement signed off by the board said: “The group had experienced a very challenging period, with both a tough external market and a series of internal operational challenges impacting our results.

“The board had acted decisively in responding to these challenges, appointing a new management team and resetting the strategic focus areas of the business to ensure that performance turned around.

“The board is now pleased with the efforts of our colleagues across the business that have borne very significant fruit, with both operational and financial performance of the business greatly improved and on a continuing upward tick.”

Bensons for Beds added: “The external environment has continued to be challenging.

“Macro-economic trends in the UK are widely reported and well understood – the combination of relatively very high inflation over this trading period with increasing interest rates and an unstable political environment have all combined to mean that consumer demand has been subdued.

“The most apparent measure of that has been that footfall into stores has been consistently down year over year and below our initial forecasts – there has been less demand in the market than we hoped for.”

In October last year, Bensons for Beds acquired Eve Sleep’s brand and intellectual property after the company entered administration. Eve Sleep was founded in 2015 and listed on AIM in May 2017.

In June 2022, Bensons for Beds named Nick Collard, a former boss at DFS, Morrisons and Holland & Barrett, as its new chief executive. He succeeded Mark Jackson who stepped down after leading the company for three years.

The company also said: “There is an old retail saying to the effect that you should focus on the KPIs that you can control.

“Faced with lacklustre market demand, the Bensons team have done just that – focusing on sales conversion and average transaction value in order to make the most of what demand there was, and on delivering a first-class customer experience both during and after sales were made and products delivered.

“That focus proved extremely effective, with all these controllable KPIs moving in the right direction.

“The ultimate measure of that is in the financial results which follow these pages, which show strong revenue growth and a return to profitability despite the challenging market.”