Johannesburg - Clicks Group, a South African beauty and pharmaceutical retailer, said it plans to open 20 to 25 stores a year until 2019 and raised the full-year dividend more than analysts had estimated.
“One of the pillars of health and beauty is convenience, you want to find a pharmacy near you,” chief executive David Kneale said by phone.
“If we get to 600 stores, we’d still only be in 40 percent of the shopping centres in South Africa, so there is an exciting future path to growth.”
Clicks opened 22 new stores in the year to end August, bringing the total to 464 outlets, the The Cape Town-based retailer said in a statement today.
The company is also seeking to open five stores in Namibia and two in Botswana in the current fiscal year.
It also plans to open three Body Shop stores and four of its music outlets, Kneale said.
South African retailers have struggled this year as accelerating inflation and unemployment of more than 25 percent constrain consumer spending.
Even so, Clicks sales advanced 9.4 percent to 20.2 billion rand in the last fiscal year, while operating profit increased 10 percent.
Clicks raised the total dividend 13 percent to 1.90 rand per share.
That compared with a 1.85-rand average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
It also beat the previous year’s total dividend gain of 11 percent.
The stock climbed as much as 3.3 percent to 66.62 rand, the highest intraday price since October 7, and traded 2.4 percent higher as of 1:28 p.m. in Johannesburg. - Bloomberg News