B&M says its pre-tax profit more than doubled in fiscal 2021.

B&M European Value Retail (LON: BME) said on Thursday its pre-tax profit jumped over 100% in fiscal 2021 as the COVID-19 crisis fuelled a sharp increase in revenue.

B&M’s revenue jumps to £4.80 billion

B&M reported £525.4 million of pre-tax profit for the year that concluded on 27^th March. In fiscal 2020, its profit before tax was capped at £252 million. The British variety store chain generated £4.80 billion of revenue in fiscal 2021 versus the year-ago figure of £3.81 billion.

According to FactSet, experts had forecast B&M to post £502.3 million of full pre-tax profit and £4.77 billion of revenue. In separate news from the United Kingdom, events organiser Informa plc said it was on track to achieve its target of at least £1.7 billion in sales this year.

B&M shares opened more than 1% down in the stock market on Thursday and lost another 3% in the next few hours. Including the price action, it is now exchanging hands at 540 pence per share. This compares to a year-to-date high of 601 pence per share in mid-February.

B&M performed fairly upbeat in the stock market last year with an annual gain of a little under 30%. At the time of writing, the Luxembourg-headquartered company has a market cap of £5.38 billion and a price to earnings ratio of 20.59.

B&M declared 13 pence per share of a final dividend on Thursday that pushed its full-year pay-out up, to 17 pence per share. In the previous financial year, it had declared a lower 8.1 pence per share of a final dividend.

The convenience retailer also expressed confidence that comparable sales showed resilience in the first nine weeks of the current year (fiscal 2022). In the same period last year, however, like-for-like sales were 1% higher. B&M highlighted on Thursday that easing COVID-19 restrictions are likely to result in a decline in its comparable revenue in fiscal 2022 on a year over year basis.

Commenting on the financial update, CEO Simon Arora said on Thursday: