SA’s largest clothing and footwear retailer Edcon swung into a trading profit in the first quarter of its new financial year despite a deterioration of the operating environment, says CEO Bernie Brookes. "Our strategic repositioning and transformation process has started indicating the green shoots of change," Brookes said. "Edgars and Jet delivered better customer service stores, an improvement in retail sales performance, and there was excellent cost containment throughout Edcon," he said. In the first quarter ended June 24, Edcon’s trading profit jumped 165.4%, to R89m, from a loss of R136m. Overall same-store sales fell 1.4%, but the group’s main chain, Edgars, reported an increase in like-for-like sales of 1.6%.
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