Supermarket Giant Iceland Cuts 1000 Jobs Despite Soaring To £4 Billion Sales
Iceland cut 1,000 jobs in the UK despite its sales hitting £4 billion in the last financial year.
The supermarket giant reported sales exceeding the £4 billion mark during its latest financial year and a noteworthy reduction in its pre-tax loss by over £30 Million.
The Flintshire-based chain recorded a revenue of £4.2 billion for the year ending March 29, 2024, up from £3.9 billion in the previous 12 months.
Documents submitted to Companies House also revealed Iceland's pre-tax loss decreased from £36.6 million to £5.7 million within the year.
During this period, Iceland opened seven new stores in the UK and closed 36, bringing its total number of outlets to 968.
City AM reported the supermarket chain also reduced its workforce from 29,118 to 28,090.
In a statement, Iceland said: "The group had a very successful year, achieving a substantial increase in adjusted EBITDA.
"Investments in our customer proposition during Q3 delivered industry-leading volume sales growth in Q4, establishing a momentum which continues with strong like-for-like sales progress in FY25 to date."
"We are able to offset the inflationary pressures on the business through cost-saving initiatives across our stores, digital operations and end-to-end supply chain."
"The group had a very successful year"
"We have reduced group gross debt and leverage measure to the lowest level since the bond financing structure was established in 2014, and we retain a very strong cash position with balances of over £148 million at year-end."
"The successful refinancing of £475 million of our £550 million 4.625 percent senior secured notes due 2025 through the issue of a combination of fixed-rate sterling and floating-rate Europe notes that will mature in December 2027 has given us the longevity we require in our capital structure to continue successfully trading the business and driving future growth."
Iceland's UK revenue rose from £3.8 billion to £4.1billion over the year, while its European earnings fell from £38 million to £23.2 million, and revenue from the rest of the world declined to some extent from £3.6 million to £3.3 million.
