Le Saunda Holdings, a mainland and Hong Kong footwear retailer, posted a 17 per cent surge in full-year earnings, as property revaluation gains more than offset declining margins.
Net profit was HK$105.7 million for the year to February, up from HK$90.1 million a year ago. Sales rose 11.8 per cent to HK$739.7 million during the period.
Property revaluation gains jumped 125 per cent to HK$28.2 million and net foreign exchange gains grew more than 10-fold to HK$10.03 million.
These offset a 2 percentage point drop in gross margin due to a more aggressive discounting strategy on which the firm did not elaborate.
Le Saunda is facing increased competition from rivals including acquisition-minded Belle International and Walker Group, which both listed in Hong Kong this year to fund their mainland network expansion.
Belle, the licensee of Joy & Peace and Bata, has more than 2,800 women's footwear stores and 1,050 sport shoe stores under the brands Belle, Teenmix, Tata and Staccato. It aims to open 1,000 new outlets every year.