Overview
- For the year to May 2 Currys said adjusted pre-tax profit rose 18% to £191m and group revenue increased 6% to £9.25bn, with UK sales up 3% to about £5.4bn.
- The board authorised a £50m share buyback and will allocate an extra £40m of purchased shares to staff as part of pay or bonuses.
- Alex Baldock will hand over as CEO to Fredrik Tønnesen in the coming weeks, with Baldock leaving to become Boots chief executive later in the year.
- Management warned that global memory-chip supply is being diverted to AI and data centres and that this squeeze is likely to cause availability problems and price rises for phones and laptops later this year, although Currys says it has secured stock into at least September.
- Currys said growth was powered by AI-enabled computing, gaming and services such as repairs and warranties, but higher restructuring costs — including about £16m of redundancies — cut statutory profit before tax to roughly £153m.