Primark reports encouraging trade from shops which have reopened

The retail business saw sales fall to £582m for the period from March 1 to June 20 after it was forced to shut stores globally in the face of the virus.

ABF said only eight of its 375 stores have yet to reopen, while it has reported encouraging trade from shops which have welcomed customers again. Primark has reopened stores in Leeds, Wakefield, York, Barnsley, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Bradford, Hull, Sheffield, Doncaster and Rotherham.

As a result of the rapid spread of Covid-19 in its markets, all of its 375 Primark stores closed in a 12-day period to March 22. This resulted in a loss of sales of some £650m per month.

In a statement, ABF said: "Consumer demand has been strong for children's, leisure and night wear, along with summer products such as shorts and T-shirts, and unsurprisingly weak for formal menswear and travel-related accessories.

"As indicated in our update of June 1, most of our regional stores are performing well, especially in retail parks.

"Our stores in the centre of big cities are suffering from the current absence of tourism and much lower commuter footfall.

"Sales have been held back to some extent by a number of operating restrictions which vary by country but continue to evolve."

Primark has paid, or has committed to pay, for all goods which were either in production or were finished goods in transit at the time of the store closures, on standard terms and without discount.

To reduce the cash outflow resulting from this loss of sales, Primark cancelled orders for goods where the handover date from the supplier was after April 17. It reduced its operating expenses by over 50 per cent and this limited the cash outflow to some £100m per month while the stores remained closed.