The Baby Bunting Group Ltd (ASX: BBN) share price surged higher on Thursday despite the market sell off.
The baby products retailer's shares finished the day over 6.5% higher despite there being no news out of it.
I suspect that some investors were scrambling to buy shares in anticipation of a strong full year result today.
Did Baby Bunting live up to expectations?
The good news for recent buyers of its shares is that Baby Bunting appears to have ticked a lot of boxes with its FY 2019 result.
According to the release, on a statutory basis, the company reported a 21% increase in total sales to $368 million, a 37.4% lift in EBITDA to $24.1 million, and a 43.3% jump in net profit after tax to $12.4 million.
As this statutory result included a 53rd week, the retailer also released pro forma figures which were a better reflection of its underlying performance in comparison to FY 2018. These excluded the impact of week 53, equity expenses, and one-off project expenses.
On a pro forma basis, Baby Bunting recorded a 19% increase in total sales to $362.3 million, above guidance EBITDA growth of 45.9% to $27.1 million, and net profit after tax growth of 58.2% to $15.1 million.
This strong performance was driven by comparable store sales growth of 8.7% and a 190-basis point increase in its gross margin to 35%. The former was driven by market share gains due to competitor closures and the latter was the result of new product range improvements and improved importation arrangements with its supplier partners.
In light of this strong performance, the Baby Bunting board declared a final dividend of 5.1 cents per share. This brought its full year dividend to 8.4 cents fully franked, which was a 58.5% increase on FY 2018's 5.3 cents per share dividend.
Pleasingly for shareholders, management appears confident that its solid performance can continue in FY 2020. It has provided pro forma net profit after tax guidance of $20 million to $22 million. This represents year on year growth of 32% to 46%.
Overall, I was very impressed with this report and continue to rate Baby Bunting as a retail share to buy along with Accent Group Ltd (ASX: AX1) and Super Retail Group Ltd (ASX: SUL).
