News roundup--Flying Brands, Home Retail Group financial results

Sales for 2009 are down but profit is up at multitle mailer Flying Brands. The company, whose catalogues include Gardening Direct and Flying Flowers, saw revenue decrease 9.7 percent to £30.6 million. Pretax profit, excluding one-off redundancy and reorganisation costs, however, was up 32 percent to £1.94 million, compared with £1.47 million in 2008.
Trading in 2010 has started off well, the company said in a statement; online sales were “significantly up on last year” at Flying Flowers. But in the Gardening Division, due to adverse weather in January, sales so far are “been behind management expectations”.
In the first three months of the year Flying Brands launched a new “value” brand called Jersey Bedding Plants, and says it is pleased with its performance so far.

Total sales at Argos declined by 6.6 percent to £537 million in the eight-week period to 27th February 2010. Like-for-like sales declined 9.4 percent, partly due to the negative impact of the later launch of the spring/summer catalogue. At sister company Homebase sales were flat compared to the same period last year at £205 million. Despite the declines, Home Retail Group chief executive Terry Duddy says profit before tax for the year will be approximately £290 million, slightly ahead of market expectations.

The Times has a feature on Jamie Oliver’s catalogue and party-plan business Jamie at Home.