MySale on a half-year roll with return to profit, outlook strengthens

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Mar 30, 2021

Success in its ongoing transition to an Australia/New Zealand-focused business continues apace for London-listed international online retailer MySale Group.

Headline news in its half-year results to 31 December 2020 was a return to profit and included expectations of fiscal year 2021 core earnings to be “significantly ahead” of market expectations.

That confidence comes in a first half that beat management’s expectations, prompting hopes of further progress in H2 and beyond.

"We have made excellent progress in the last six months reflected by the successful ongoing execution of our ANZ First Strategy, which is flowing through into the financial results”, said chief executive Carl Jackson.

That translates to group EBITDA for the half year hitting A$2.5 million from the A$3.1 million loss in the prior year period.

Although H1 group total revenue fell 11% to A$63.8m, “better quality” core revenues, which cuts out revenue from legacy inventory, rose 15% to A$61.3 million.

During the period, 88% of core revenue was from third-party sellers on its proprietary ‘Inventory Light Marketplace’ platform. This includes 1,026 active third-party partners and that number continued to grow in the first two months of Q3, it noted, underpinned by over 90 active marketplace sellers “with significant continued momentum expected for the reminder of the financial year”. 

Gross margin continued to improve to 38% from 34% a year ago, “driven by better quality revenues and cost base reductions”, MySale noted.

Group cost base also reduced by 21% to A$21.7 million and the group recorded a net cash balance of  A$15.8 million.

And its H2 performance so far? Trading for the first two months of Q3 continued to be profitable, it said, with core revenue and gross profit “significantly ahead of the prior year, underpinned by robust margins and a right-sized, more flexible cost base”.

The group statement also read: “A key area of the restructure has been to focus on better quality revenue, which has meant being much stricter on which third-party sellers can trade on the platform and being more selective over what stock is purchased".