DFI Retail Group Holdings Limited 2025 Preliminary Announcement Of Results
Source: EQS|
The following announcement was issued today to a 2025 PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT OF RESULTS Highlights
"Effective execution of our strategy drove strong financial performance and higher shareholder returns in 2025, despite a challenging retail environment. Our significant progress made in portfolio simplification creates investment capacity for strategic priorities, enabling greater value for our customers and accretive inorganic opportunities to drive sustainable growth and returns." Chairman
PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT OF RESULTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED INTRODUCTION It is my honour and privilege to join As Amid macroeconomic volatility and evolving consumer needs, the Group has been responding effectively through a stronger value proposition and enhanced omnichannel capabilities. This strategy is yielding early and encouraging results, demonstrated by a 35% increase in underlying profit in 2025. We remain particularly optimistic about the growth prospects in Health & Beauty and Convenience, as well as the opportunities emerging in digital. I am confident that under the capable leadership of Scott and his team, DFI will continue to deliver retail excellence to customers across Under a new 70% dividend payout policy announced in STRATEGIC HIGHLIGHTS Over the course of 2025, the Group executed effectively against its strategic framework of Customer First, People Led, Shareholder Driven. This approach enables DFI to navigate market challenges while capturing opportunities that build on its strong platform for sustainable growth. The retail landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by shifting consumer behaviour and digitalisation. The Group remains focused on strategic priorities that place customers first – delivering quality, value and convenience in everyday moments. Across its businesses, the Group made good progress in strengthening value propositions, expanding customer reach in growth markets, driving deeper customer engagement with data-driven insights and accelerating digital monetisation. These initiatives enhance its ability to better serve customers and supplier partners while delivering returns to shareholders. Investing in talent development remains at the top of the agenda. During the year, the Group achieved an improved team member engagement score. Inclusive leadership, a purpose-driven culture and engaged team members are critical to driving stronger performance and delivering exceptional customer experience. In parallel, the Group continues to enhance its organisational agility in meeting customer needs while reducing overhead costs. In 2025, the Group completed the divestments of minority stakes in Yonghui and Robinsons Retail, as well as PROSPECTS Transformation is an ongoing journey for today's retailers. Serving diverse communities across I would like to end by expressing the Board's appreciation to our team members. We could not be more proud of the work they have done over the year, particularly in responding to the deeply tragic Tai Po fire in Chairman GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S REVIEW INTRODUCTION We are pleased to close 2025 on a strong note, with underlying profit attributable to shareholders up 35% year-on-year to Customers across With a renewed focus on balancing profitability with capital discipline, the Group ended the year in a net cash position, after distributing a In December, we held our inaugural Investor Day where DFI announced a new dividend policy with an increased payout ratio of 70%. Dividends paid during the year, combined with a share price increase of more than 70%, resulted in a total shareholder return exceeding 90% in 2025. We also outlined our three-year plan for realising our financial ambitions and accelerated growth goals, including a target of As we enter the new financial year, we remain firmly focused on executing our strategic priorities to drive sustained, profitable growth. STRATEGIC DELIVERABLES – KEY PROGRESS Over the past year, we have made significant progress in our transformation from a portfolio business into a strategically focused operating company. We have been advancing our strategy across five key deliverables to create greater value for our customers, supplier partners and shareholders. Retail Excellence By delivering best-in-class customer propositions, we see a wide range of opportunities for driving higher store sales density and market share gain across all business segments. Health & Beauty Mannings and Guardian continue to strengthen their position as the trusted advisor for wellness, unlocking strong cross-category growth opportunities through an assortment with high functional value across supplements, derma skin care and hair care. Customers across Convenience Food Given consumers' pivot towards value, continued northbound travel and increasing competition from Chinese mainland e-commerce platforms, the Wellcome team has focused on enhancing food basket value for customers by advancing our Everyday Low Price strategy. Investment in reduced pricing through strategic direct sourcing of core basket items, particularly in fresh, has resulted in a 2% growth in volume driven by higher footfall and increased items per basket. Direct sourcing allowed us to reduce prices while protecting gross profit, resulting in a 30-basis point gross margin improvement. These efforts further supported the narrowing basket price gap compared to the Greater Home Furnishings Similar to Food, Own Brand Our reset in Own Brand strategy across Food and Health & Beauty is driving higher customer loyalty and sales penetration through greater exclusivity and value. By refining our product range to align closely with customer needs and maximising cross-selling across our formats, we achieved meaningful improvements in margins and sales productivity. Access to Customers We continue to strategically expand our network in high-growth, profitable markets, primarily through a capex-light franchise model, with 114 net new openings3 in 2025. In particular, we will deepen Omnichannel and Data Ecosystem DFI's expanded omnichannel ecosystem is elevating our relevance and engagement with customers, providing us deep data insights across daily consumer needs that few peers in Retail Media (DFIQ Media) Positioned to become DFIQ Portal We aim to empower our supplier partners with actionable insights that drive greater business impact and better outcomes for customers. The DFIQ Portal – a vendor platform combining DFIQ Media, DFIQ Insights and trade capabilities – was launched in Retail Analytics Leveraging cross-format data insights from over 5 million yuu Rewards members in Lean & Agile Model Maintaining a lean and agile operating model is essential to ensuring efficient decision-making in a rapidly evolving retail landscape. Continued cost optimisation and better product sourcing will support both strategic price reinvestment and sustainable margin expansion in the coming years. Overhead reductions are expected to translate into lower SG&A costs beginning 2026. We remain disciplined in capex, driving network growth primarily through a franchise model with a strong focus on paybacks. Strategic pivot from portfolio to a focused operating company We conduct strategic reviews of our businesses guided by return on capital and total shareholder return priorities. During the year, we completed the divestment of our minority stakes in Yonghui and Robinsons Retail, as well as our 2025 PERFORMANCE Total revenue from subsidiaries in 2025 was Excluding the impact of the minority stake divestments in Yonghui and Robinsons Retail completed in 2025, total revenue for the Group, including 100% of associates and joint ventures, remained broadly stable. The Group reported total underlying profit attributable to shareholders of Underlying profit from subsidiaries was The Group's share of underlying profit from associates was The Group reported operating cash flow after lease payments of SUSTAINABILITY We remain firmly committed to our purpose to sustainably serve As advocates for our customers and the communities we serve, we are committed to delivering affordable, sustainable products. In 2025, we delivered 380 tonnes of Own Brand low-carbon rice to our BUSINESS REVIEW HEALTH AND BEAUTY Sales for the Health and Beauty division grew 7% year-on-year or 5% on an LFL basis to Both Mannings and Guardian achieved strong LFL sales performance, supported by growing wellness sales penetration towards the mid-term target of over 35%. To further strengthen our leadership in wellness – a cross-category opportunity spanning health, beauty and personal care – Mannings and Guardian complemented their wellness-focused assortment with in-store health, skin and scalp assessments in selected outlets. Our personalised consultations and tailored product recommendations deepen our engagement with customers, supporting larger basket sizes and higher purchase conversion. In Guardian in CONVENIENCE Total Convenience sales were In 7-Eleven Singapore reported robust LFL sales growth driven by a stronger RTE proposition and effective promotional campaigns. In FOOD Reported sales for the Food division were In Southeast Asia Food sales performance benefited from multiple rounds of government consumption voucher distribution in HOME FURNISHINGS Amid a challenging macro environment and reduced consumer demand for big-ticket items due to subdued real estate market activity, the These combined with significant cost optimisation efforts in labour, supply chain and infrastructure across markets contributed to a RESTAURANTS The Group's share of Maxim's underlying profits was OUTLOOK 2025 marked a year of strong progress for DFI, with the strategic reset across our businesses driving improved underlying profitability in both subsidiaries and associates, a stronger ROCE and enhanced shareholder returns. Our strengthened balance sheet and disciplined use of capital provides capacity to reinvest for growth both organically and inorganically, laying a strong foundation as we pursue our financial ambitions of achieving a At our inaugural Investor Day, we outlined clear strategic priorities which include strengthening our value proposition, enhancing omnichannel capabilities, accelerating Own Brand innovation, deepening digital monetisation, and leveraging data to deliver better outcomes for both customers and supplier partners. For the full year of 2026, the Group expects organic revenue growth of approximately 2-3%8 and underlying profit attributable to shareholders to be between Looking into 2026 and beyond, I am confident that DFI has developed a renewed foundation as we execute against our strategic priorities to deliver sustained, profitable growth, drive market share gains across our formats and generate long-term returns for our shareholders. Group Chief Executive ----------------- 1 Excluding Singapore Food business and minority stake in Robinsons Retail upon completion of divestment in 2025 2 Based on a third-party assured price comparison of a 200-item comparable basket between DFI and Greater 3 Excluding Singapore Food. Divestment of business was completed in early 4 Excluding Singapore Food, cigarettes under Convenience and 5 Excluding financial contribution from 6 Free cash flow is equivalent to cash flows from operating activities after lease payments minus normal capital expenditure 7 Excluding Singapore Food business and minority stake in Robinsons Retail upon completion of divestment in 2025 8 Excluding Singapore Food business Hashtag: #DFIRetailGroup #Mannings #Guardian #7-Eleven #Wellcome #MarketPlace #IKEA #yuu #Maxim's The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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