Rod Duke: Briscoes Group managing director on the company's full-year sales data

Briscoe Group's revenue has stayed virtually flat, with profit taking a hit.

Total revenue for the owner of Briscoe Homeware and Rebel Sport decreased 0.06 percent - to $791.5 million - for the year to January.

It's reporting net after-tax profit of $60.6 million, dropping 38.9 percent on the year before.

Managing director, Rod Duke, says the Government needs to put some new solutions forward to help the economy grow.

"That's be my assessment - and I think the time is probably about right now."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rod Duke might have an answer to some of these questions. Actually,
he is the boss of Briscoes and they have announced
the company results today. Revenue largely flat, but profit down
because margins were squeezed. Of course, the state of the
economy partly to blame for this. Rod Duke is with me.
Good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hi, right, how you doing.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
You're really good? Thank you, Given I mean it's been
well traversed how bad retail has been for you know,
the struggles over the past year. You must be pretty
reasonably happy with this.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, we're pretty toughed with the result. Got the sales
did cost a bit of margin, costs within one percent
of last year, infantries back about five million dollars, and
stock turns up. So a lot of the metrics that
we measure have come through and we're pretty pleased.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
What is it that you do to make sure you know,
I mean, obviously profit was down, but it's still profit, right,
What are you doing to make sure of that and
keeping revenue flat?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Look, we're doing a lot of the basics that all
retailers know about. You're refreshing the rangers, You're improving the
quality of service in stores. The stores look better, the
online presence and presentation, and the platform is easy to maneuver,
just all the regular things that all retailers want to

(01:22):
do all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Looking ahead, do you think, well, how long before you
think things get better? And are you worried about Trump
or you don't have much exposure to the tariffs and
the trade wars.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Look, I have to worry about in this country with
my business rather than worry about mainly ex elsewhere. But look,
at the end of the day, Look it is what
it is. We'll have some effect in this country. But basically,
all I've got to do is a customer that's been hurting,

(01:54):
and we think in the near term it will improve
a little and then towards the back into this year
or second half of this year, we should be able
to see some improvement. Given that we've got a government
that want to be re elected.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, we'll get to that in a second. Does that
mean for the first half of this year? Does that
mean more sales? Potentially?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Look, look at means doing a lot of other clever things,
you know, better rangers, as I said, better service, it's
all of those things. They're just doing things better than
my competitor set that's the criteria.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Now you've said today you want the government to get
their their arson to gear. What exactly do you mean
and what do you want them to do?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well? I think it's about time something happened. I understand
they probably inherited something they didn't didn't anticipate, and getting
to understand how bad the situation and looking at solving
some of those problems. But it's just about time they started,

(03:01):
I think to put into place some really innovative and
some problem solving situation the solutions. That would be my assessment,
and I think time is probably about right now.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
They would argue they have been doing exactly that, you know,
and there's only so much spend there you can cut
if you want to go out and do fancy you know,
corporate tax council whatever. Then you've got to balance the books.
I mean, they're in a tight spot, I think would
be their argument.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, and look, i'd agree with that too. I agree
it is a very very very difficult situation. But you know,
we need to see in the suburbs a bit of
imagination and a bit of forward thinking.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
You haven't got any bright ideas for us rone.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I'm looking for bright ideas of improving my profit next year.
They've owned the comment.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
We'll leave that to them. Hey, thanks very much for
coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Pleasure Roger
Managing director Briscoe's Group. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
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