Furniture retailer Lewis more than halved its interim dividend to R1 from the matching period’s R2.15. Aftertax profit for the six months to end-September fell 41.5% to R174.3m while overall revenue fell 2% to R2.74bn, its said in its interim results statement on Wednesday morning. Lewis said the drop in revenue was mainly due to lower insurance and interest charged on credit sales. Excluding new stores, Lewis said its sales fell 9.2%. Including new stores, merchandise sales grew 1%. Group credit sales were down 2.3% and accounted for 63.4% of all sales, down from 65.9% in the matching period. In the Beares chain, acquired from Abil’s subsidiary Ellerines, credit sales accounted for 52.9% of total sales. In its flagship Lewis stores along with Best Home and Electric, credit sales account for 67.4% of the total. Operating costs, excluding debtor costs, increased by 8.4% mainly as a result of the integration costs of the 56 Beares and Ellerines stores acquired in Botswana, Lesotho, Na...
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