Furniture and appliance retailer, Lewis Group's revenue only increased by 4.2% to R6.7 billion, but the group boasted a 136.9% rise in headline earnings per share attributable to great customer payments.
This allowed the group to recover money it had set aside for unpaid accounts.
Lewis said the health of the debtors book continued to improve during the year to end-March and the level of satisfactory paid customers increased from 70.5% in 2020 to 74.4% in 2021, while collection rates recovered steadily after lockdown.
Lewis Group owns Lewis, Beares and United Furniture Outlets (UFO).
The group declared a total dividend of 328 cents per share which is a 77.3% increase from the previous year.
The group's balance sheet remains robust with no borrowings while cash generated from operations increased by 46.8% to R915 million.
Johan Enslin, Lewis CEO, said the growth in operating profit of 174.2% was driven by buoyant merchandise sales which recovered strongly following the lockdown, together with the improving quality of the debtors book and tight cost management.
Merchandise sales increased 6.7% to R3.9 billion. Cash sales increased by 25.9%, while credit sales declined by 7.9% as a result of the hard lockdown, the group said.
Over the year the group opened 24 and closed 11 stores, increasing the store base to 807.
Enslin cautioned that the group is expecting trading conditions to become increasingly challenging in the months ahead. "The potential impact of a third wave of Covid-19 infections, together with Covid-19 relief grants being discontinued, could result in further economic pressure on our customer base," he said.