Southern Africa’s largest retailer of building materials and associated products Cashbuild on Tuesday reported an 11% decrease in interim headline earnings per share.
Cashbuild still declared an interim dividend of 435c per ordinary share for the six months to December.
It said revenue for the period increased by 3%, with revenue for stores in existence prior to July 2017 remaining the same while that for 33 new stores since then provided the rise.
"Notwithstanding this, the increase in revenue did not compensate for the increased expenses, resulting in the operating profit decreasing by 12%," Cashbuild said.
Cashbuild said it would continue its store expansion, relocation and refurbishment strategy in a controlled manner.
It said group revenue for the subsequent six weeks after half year end had decreased by 1% on the comparable six week period and that it believed trading conditions would remain extremely challenging.