AGM Statement and Trading Update

Gear4music (Holdings) PLC

08 September 2023

 

8 September 2023

Gear4music (Holdings) plc

AGM Statement and Trading Update

Gear4music (Holdings) plc, ('Gear4music' or 'the Group') (LSE: G4M), the UK's largest retailer of musical instruments and music equipment, will hold its Annual General Meeting at 10.30am today.

At the meeting Gear4music's Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Wass, will make the following statement:

"We are pleased to report that trading during the financial year to date has been in line with the Board's expectations.

As highlighted in our statement on 20 June 2023, we are prioritising increasing gross margins and cost base reduction to improve profitability, ahead of revenue growth. We are pleased with the progress being made in these areas, which has included driving significant cost efficiencies in our software development unit.

Our recently launched second hand system is trading well and continues to show signs of being a long-term growth driver, having successfully facilitated several thousand trade-ins since its March 2023 debut. During the last few weeks, we have also launched the system into our European markets, and we are confident it will evolve to become a meaningful component of the Group's future revenue portfolio.

We are well prepared for the upcoming seasonal peak trading period, backed by a robust level of working capital availability, and the Board retains its confidence in our medium and longer-term profitable growth strategy.

The Group intends to release a trading update for the six-month period ending 30 September 2023 on 19 October 2023, followed by half year results on 14 November 2023, at which time further details of improved gross margins and the underlying cost reductions achieved will be shared."

* Gear4music believes that consensus market expectations for the year ending 31 March 2024 prior to release of this announcement were revenues of £161.2 million and EBITDA of £10.0 million.

ENDS

Enquiries:

Gear4music Andrew Wass, Chief Executive Officer Chris Scott, Chief Financial Officer	[phone]
Singer Capital Markets - Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker Peter Steel/Sam Butcher, Corporate Finance Tom Salvesen, Corporate Broking	[phone]
Alma PR - Financial PR Rebecca Sanders-Hewett Joe Pederzolli David Ison	[phone] [e-mail]

About Gear4music (Holdings) plc

Operating from a Head Office in York, Distribution Centres in York, Bacup, Sweden, Germany, Ireland & Spain, and showrooms in York, Bacup, Sweden & Germany, the Group sells own-brand musical instruments and music equipment alongside premium third-party brands including Fender, Yamaha and Roland, to customers ranging from beginners to musical enthusiasts and professionals, in the UK, Europe and the Rest of the World.

Having developed its own e-commerce platform, with multilingual, multicurrency websites delivering to over 190 countries, the Group continues to build its overseas presence.

 

END