Sparks - Fourlis Holdings

Fourlis has delivered a strong start to the year from a revenue perspective, with healthy demand across most of the formats and geographies, except for Romania. The apparent slowing in revenue growth post the period end reflects much tougher comparatives from Q225. Management is clearly prioritising long-term positioning, with the cost of expansion and investment in building platforms and centralising support functions to build a broader, more scalable retail platform affecting Q126’s profitability. To mitigate the higher investment management is focused on controlling costs and generating efficiencies. It is confident the current investment phase will lead to meaningful operating leverage from FY27.

The headline figures for Q126 are: revenue increased by 12.6%, gross profit increased by 11.1%, EBITDA increased by 7.4% and operating loss widened. Sporting Goods (SG) enjoyed the highest rate of revenue growth at 24.9%, closely followed by Health and Wellness at 23.3%, while Home Furnishings (HF) delivered growth of 6.1%. HF continues to benefit from resilient demand linked to housing-related categories and the development of the IKEA network. SG is seeing particularly strong momentum from the Foot Locker roll-out. All divisions reported a lower gross margin, with the only narrative on divisional performance being product mix and targeted promotional activity affecting SG’s margin. The current trading update indicates revenue growth of 8% for the year-to-date through to 16 May 2026, with SG’s 16% growth continuing to outpace HF’s 4%. There was a notable strengthening in the comparatives from Q125 to Q225.