Dixons Retail has revealed plans to slash £150 million off costs after spectacularly crashing into a massive £224 million loss.
The firm says most of this will come from working smarter, not job losses, but it is also cutting the number of UK stores by almost 200 to 450.
The group, which owns Currys and PC World, fell to losses of £224m in the year to May.
Dixons have also announced the shock departure of finance director Nicholas Cadbury after 18 years at the firm.
John Browett, chief executive, blamed the loss on the falling value of its online business, Pixmania, trouble in Greece and the cost of closing Spanish operations.
The group, which employs 40,000, said UK profits were flat at £71m, a strong performance particularly when compared to rival Comet, which revealed on Wednesday it lost £9m in the same period.
“This is an encouraging performance in the context of a weak market,” said Browett. But he revealed the group was targetting an extra £50m of savings in each of the next three years in addition to £50m delivered in the past year.
Although this is what the headlines report and what we’ll all see in the tabloids professing the death of the high street etc., it of course not the full story.
The company said the economic backdrop remained challenging as it reported one-off costs of £300.9m, including a £251.6m investment write-off relating to impairments at its various European businesses.
The loss in the year to April 30 compares with a profit of £112.7m last year. Underlying pre-tax profits came in at £85.3m, in line with City expectations.
In other words, it’s actually not that bad once you strip out the hits from Spain and Greece, both of which are facing economic turmoil, if not just hard times.
Looking ahead, Mr Browett said: “I don’t think it will be disastrous, it will just be a flat or slightly difficult year,” adding that he expected the UK and European markets in electrical goods to decline another 5pc in the coming year.
“The key question now is is how much we can outperform that market,” Mr Browett added.
Dixons Group said it was “well prepared for this environment. We are creating a market leading differentiated customer offer leaving us well set to emerge from the current climate ahead of the competition.”
So it isn’t all doom and gloom after all we’re happy to report.