Wolford is now debt-free, has enough cash to get through crisis

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jun 5, 2020

Wolford has had to announce plenty of bad news in recent years but this week the upscale hosiery and bodywear brand shared some good news too. The company said that it's now debt-free and has enough cash to get it through the coronavirus crisis.

This follows the buyer of its Bregenz headquarters complex (which Wolford is leasing back) having transferred the agreed purchase price of €72 million to the company. 

That allowed Wolford to repay all credit lines to its financing banks. At the same time, the company repaid the shareholder loan including interests granted by Wolford’s main shareholder Fosun Fashion Investment Holdings (HK) Limited. 

“This means that our company is now debt-free and also has sufficient funds available to overcome the current crisis and drive forward the further development of the company as planned,” said Executive Board member Andrew Thorndike.

And the cash injection has clearly come at a good time with the company saying that the pandemic has had “noticeably negative consequences for the development of sales and earnings”. 

We’ll hear the full impact when the firm releases its results for the year to April 30 towards the end of next month.

It has been loss-making for a while with sales on a constant downward trajectory, In its annual results two years ago, it reported its worst sales in five years, then its revenues fell again in the succeeding 12 months. And it’s likely that it will report its worst-ever sales again this time. It already said in December that its first-half was tough and H2 will have been even worse due to the impact of the pandemic.