Harvey Norman shares savaged after earnings drop
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Harvey Norman shares have plunged more than 14 per cent – their biggest drop in 30 years – after toughening competition and lower property revaluation saw its half-year profit fall by almost a fifth.
Losses and a $20 million writedown at Harvey Norman’s Coomboona dairy farm joint venture also drove the 19.8 per cent fall in pretax profit to $293.61 million, the company said on Wednesday.
Without the impact of property valuations and the dairy write-down, underlying earnings rose slightly, by 0.8 per cent to $296 million, the retailer said. Its net profit fell 19.3 per cent to $209.78 million.
Sales at Harvey Norman’s Australian franchisee network grew 4.8 per cent over the period, but the profit the company took from those stores fell by 2.9 per cent to $172 million, which the company called “a solid performance from the franchisees in Australia given the increased competitive landscape”.
The challenges at home were largely offset by a $4.7 million jump in earnings from company-owned international stores in Ireland, Slovenia, Croatia, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand.
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