Indigo misplaced $50 million in its final fiscal yr as its extremely publicized cybersecurity incident walloped what was in any other case a worthwhile yr, the guide retailer stated Wednesday.
The TSX-listed firm posted monetary outcomes on Wednesday for the most up-to-date quarter and full monetary yr as much as April 1.
They confirmed that the guide retailer posted income of $1.058 billion final yr, a decline of $4.6 million, or 0.4 per cent, from the earlier yr’s stage. The earlier yr’s revenues had been boosted by a one-time renegotiation of economic phrases with one of many cafés that function inside its shops, to the tune of $17 million.
When it comes to core merchandise gross sales, the quantity grew by $4.6 million, or 0.5 per cent, to $1.015 billion, in contrast with $1.010 billion within the prior yr.
However a nasty year-ago comparability was removed from the corporate’s greatest drawback. In February, Indigo was hit by a large cyberattack that rendered its shops unable to course of debit or bank card transactions for a number of days, and worn out on-line gross sales for nearly a month.
“This had a cloth influence on gross sales and profitability within the fourth quarter and financial yr,” the corporate stated.
The private data of present and former Indigo workers was stolen in a cyberattack. There isn’t any proof the information has been launched, regardless of claims it has, however specialists say the danger will not be gone.
Previous to the hack, the corporate says it was on observe for a powerful monetary yr, with e-commerce gross sales rising by 70 per cent as much as January, and record-breaking in-store gross sales throughout the important thing Boxing Week interval on the finish of December.
For the yr as an entire, the “common merchandise enterprise,” which incorporates gross sales of all the things however books, grew by 5.8 per cent. Gross sales of the print enterprise, which incorporates books, in the meantime, declined by 3.7 per cent.
The retailer’s numbers for the fourth quarter had been “closely impacted by the ransomware assault,” the corporate stated, with a drop in income of $26.5 million to $194.2 million in contrast with the January-to-March interval a yr earlier.
The corporate has but to provide you with a ultimate monetary tally for the cyberattack, however it is going to be within the tens of millions of {dollars}. “Indigo maintains cyber insurance coverage protection and is within the means of working with its insurer to make claims underneath the coverage,” it stated.
“Whereas the enterprise interruption losses can’t be moderately estimated right now, the corporate incurred $5.2 million of bills as of April 1, 2023.”
“This has been a turbulent yr for Indigo, because the progress gained from our post-pandemic re-emergence was negatively impacted by hostile macro-economic elements,” CEO Peter Ruis stated. “These headwinds had been furthered by the ransomware assault in our fourth quarter. I’m extremely grateful for our unimaginable groups, who’ve been working tirelessly to convey operations again to regular.”
Administration shakeup
Ruis solely turned Indigo’s CEO within the fall, when founder and longtime chief Heather Reisman gave up her twin roles of president and CEO to Ruis and Andrea Limbardi, the chain’s chief buyer and digital officer. Reisman stayed on as govt chair, however that system didn’t final, and final quarter it was revealed that she can be retiring utterly.
Final month, Limbardi additionally left the corporate to turn out to be the brand new CEO of clothes retailer Reitmans.
The manager departures are simply the newest in a flurry of change in the corporate’s management. 4 members of Indigo’s board left abruptly earlier this month — together with one, Chika Stacy Oriuwa, who stated her departure was “due to her lack of confidence in board management and due to mistreatment.”
Three new folks — Donald Lewtas, Joel Silver and Markus Dohle — have joined the corporate’s board of administrators, the corporate stated Wednesday.