PRIMARK PROFIT BONANZA

PRIMARK was hailed as the “vanguard” of value yesterday as bargain hunters helped it buck the recession.

The store posted an 8% rise in annual profits to £252million.

George Weston, chief executive of parent company Associated British Foods, also revealed the cut-price retailer showed a 7% improvement in same-store sales.

He said: “It is a story of value-for-money clothes and Primark is at the vanguard of this sector.

“But it is also about the quality of our fashions. You have to have the right clothes to sell and Primark has been exceptional.”

Weston said women between the age of 13-30 had helped boost the figures.

He added: “It has been an important age group for us.

“The young have been affected by this recession with university graduates especially having a very hard time.”

Weston said sales of children’s clothes had also done well and had been aided by the demise of Woolworths.

Sales

Primark helped AB Foods, which owns famous brand products such as Twinings, Kingsmill and Ryvita, report a 4% rise in profits to £655m for the year.

Weston said the strong performance of its sugar division in Europe and Africa had boosted the results as stability returned to the market following a lengthy EU reform of the region’s sugar market.

He said sugar and flour sales had been helped by “more people staying at home and making cakes”, but sales of premium Twining teas such as Darjeeling had been hit by customers trading down.

It said it will close its Newcastle-based tea-packing factory with the loss of 260 jobs as production moves to Poland and China.

Weston warned of “uncertainty” in the scale and speed of the UK’s economic recovery.

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