Genesco-owned Schuh Limited has filed its UK accounts for the year to early February and said that turnover during the period rose a healthy 7.4% while profitability soared.

The footwear retailer reported turnover of £380.8 million and EBITDA that jumped 35.8% to £28 million. Meanwhile profit before tax was up an even bigger 56.8% at £21 million and post-tax profit increased almost as strongly with a 54.8% leap to £16 million. 

It all pointed to accompany in good health and it was one that increased its employee headcount during the year by almost 10% with an increase from under 4,000 up to 4,371. Meanwhile, customer footfall also rose, albeit by ‘only’ 3.8% reaching over 49 million people.

The footfall increase suggests healthy traffic for the company’s stores, but it also said that its e-commerce performance continued to be strong with like-for-like growth of 10%.

Schuh said that the retail environment continued to see difficult trading conditions and it will continue to review its portfolio to ensure it’s best placed to adapt to the changing backdrop.

And despite the strength at the group during the period, its parent company’s most recent recent results filings have shown that it’s not all about progress for Schuh.

Genesco’s Q2 figures that cover the three months up to early August this year showed Schuh Group with comparable same store and e-commerce sales down 2%. The business saw overall sales up only 1% and there was a higher mix of sale product at Schuh. 

That’s perhaps no surprise given how difficult the recent summer period was for the UK fashion sector in general as unseasonal weather dampened demand for summer-specific product.

Yet overall, the business appears to be performing strongly and either matching or beating the performance of its sector peers.