Businesswear clothes retailer TM Lewin have announced a sales drive overseas to try to double group sales over five years following a recent UK slowdown. TM Lewin, which supplies shirts, blouses and accessories to men and women, also revealed that it had broken through £100 million of sales for the first time.
The company said sales jumped 20 per cent to £100.4m in the year to 26 February. Underlying earnings climbed 5 per cent to £14.7m as profit margins were squeezed by higher cotton prices.
However, Lewin also revealed that sales growth slowed to 9 per cent in the following six months to 27 August, but including 26 per cent international sales growth.
Overseas sales were helped by strong demand from its seven stores in Malaysia and Singapore. The division was also helped by robust online orders in the United States and Australia.
Lewin said it planned to boost foreign sales from £13m to £88m by 2016 to capitalise on overseas demand – with the aim of making the overseas arm as big a sales contributor as the domestic business.
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