DSGi, which owns Curry's and PCWorld, widely used by small
businesses for their PC supplies, saw a 78% drop in profits for
fiscal 2009.
It has identified a further £200m in cost savings over the next
four years as it wrestles with the recession.
The retail giant this morning posted a £140.4m loss after
one-off charges of £190.9m related to restructuring and
amortisation, while like-for-like sales dropped 9% to £8.23bn.
Working capital took a big hit, falling from a balance of £8.6m
last year to a deficit of £287.5m in fiscal 2009
The company said this was due to structural changes in the trade
supplier credit environment, which prevented it from deferring
payments to suppliers, making early settlement discounts to help
distributors and vendors manage their credit risk and an increase
in debtors resulting from the Get Connected programme.
"The difficult economic backdrop across Europe and subsequent
impact on consumer spending, particularly on discretionary
products, has been well publicised," said chief executive John
Browett.
A version of this story originally appeared on
MicroScope.