Currys boss Alex Baldock said he won’t allow the retailer’s growth to be “interrupted” as the electricals giant prepares for its tax bill to rise £32m from April next year.
The chief executive said the retailer had plans to mitigate some of the “new and unwelcome” costs coming from changes to employers’ National Insurance contributions, National Living Wage increases and inflation-based increases in business rates.
“We’ve already got plans to deal with about half of these headwinds, and we’re working hard to get after the rest, which will inevitably mean further cost reduction,” he said.
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“We’ve got growing momentum at Currys. We won’t allow this to be interrupted,” he added.
His comments come as the retailer revealed it had shrunk its pre-tax losses from £44m to £10m in the half year to 26 October as sales edged up 1% to £3.9bn.
Baldock warned the additional costs would lead to “inevitable” price rises, but that it was a “last resort” for the business.
“It was an unhelpful budget for jobs, prices, investment and growth, but I also understand that the government have difficult decisions to make, and my job is to make sure that Currys is successful whoever’s in power,” he added.
Baldock is the latest boss to speak out on the extra costs it faces from Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget.
The Entertainer CEO Andrew Murphy told Retail Gazette that the larger tax bill it faces has “changed what we feel about our opportunities for growth and the viability of our own estate”.
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