Moss Bros Group, which operates the Moss menswear chain, has filed its accounts for the year to the end of January and said that turnover fell to £137.5 million from £151.5 million a year earlier.

But we’re told that in the period since then, the business “continues to trade strongly and the directors expect the strong trading performance to continue into the year ending 25 January 2025”. 

Back with the 2023/24 year, EBITDA was also lower, dropping to £25 million this time from almost £36 million in the previous financial year. Pre-tax profit fell to £16.6 million from £33.1 million and net profit fell to £13.6 million from £26.7 million.

The company said that demand for weddings normalised following the post-pandemic surge seen in the previous year, which caused total sales for the latest period to fall by 9.3%. With formal clothing being such a big part of the company’s business, that evolution was bound to impact it.

But it added that it traded strongly and remained focused on the high levels of service offered in its stores. The online business also benefited from a platform upgrade along with continued expansion of its casualwear ranges. All of this came alongside investment in the rebrand that saw the company changing the name of its stores from its heritage name Moss Bros simply to Moss. It said that this will “better reflect our future brand focus as well as our heritage”.

The group added that like the rest of the retail sector it faced a lot of market uncertainty and cost inflation and that while the EBITDA figure fell, it was still a “creditable” performance and yielded a substantial EBITDA margin of 18.2%.

It also continued to be highly cash generative with no debt.

And it added that despite wides for a difficulties across UK retail, its performance was indicative of “the resilience” of a certain segment of UK consumers and “their willingness to buy products which offer exceptional quality at reasonable price points. Although we are careful not to deviate too far from our core, we believe the brand appeals to an increasingly broad customer base and is capable of further expansions”.

Part of the process of positioning it for future growth includes a focus on its store estate and it has relocated five stores and refurbished one as well as opening three more. It has also concentrated on cost controls across all areas of the business and said it has worked on continuous improvement and its product range in order to stay relevant.