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Solomon Lew's Premier Investments (ASX: PMV) will push its stationery brand Smiggle into 10 new countries in a strategy involving online and new stores which aims to target more than 700 million people.
Smiggle will be pushing into South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, the UAE and Canada directly with local operators and will also partner with Amazon Europe to sell into Germany, Spain, France and Italy.
The slew of partnership deals was announced as Premier Investments reported a record net profit after tax of $88.8 million for the half year to January 26, which was a rise of 13 percent on the prior corresponding period.
"Smiggle's Accelerated Global Growth Strategy is progressing well with partnerships announced today with leading iconic retailers providing significant new exposure of the brand to a combined population of over 775 million in ten additional countries," Premier Retail chief executive Mark McInnes (pictured left) says.
Premier, which also owns a portfolio of fashion brands including Just Jeans, Peter Alexander, Dotti and Portmans also reported total sales had risen by 8 percent to $680.2 million across the entire business.
Its apparel brands delivered sales growth of 7.5 percent and its like-for-like sales rose 8.8 percent while its online services rose 35.2 percent in 1H19.
It also announced a record interim ordinary dividend of 33 cents per share, fully franked, up 13.8 per cent or 4 cents per share.
"Premier Investments has delivered another very strong result during a half that has seen many retailers struggle with challenging trading conditions," Solomon Lew (pictured right) says.
The Smiggle brand achieved record global sales for the half of $178.8 million including a strong performance from the Asian market which saw sales growth of 34.8 percent.
However, Premier has revised its sales target for Smiggle to hit $450 million by the 2020 financial year because of the impact of "Brexit". The company says it now expects to reach that target by 2022.
PMV shares were steady at $16.49 at midday (AEST).
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