Despite a persistently difficult market environment, the Hugo Boss fashion group was able to achieve its objectives with stable currency-adjusted sales showing an increase of 1% and with an increase in consolidated profit of 10% (2003: EUR 82.4 million). Consolidated sales after currency effects fell by 4% to EUR 1,054.1 million (2002: EUR 1,093.4 million). The HUGO BOSS Group managed to increase net income by 10% to EUR 82.4 million (2002: EUR 74.7 million). Earnings before tax rose even more significantly by 27% (2003: EUR 120.6 million, 2002: EUR 95.1 million).
#'The Group's consistent pursuit of profitable growth enabled us to considerably
increase our income and reach our return-on-investment objectives in spite of
less than favorable economic developments,'' was the comment of the
Chairman of the Managing Board, Dr. Bruno S�lzer, on the provisional figures.
In particular BOSS Woman was able to substantially improve both sales (2003:
EUR 50.8 million, 2002: EUR 37.0 million) and net results (2003: EUR -3.0
million, 2002: EUR -18.1 million) and break even in the second half of fiscal
2003.
Furthermore, the HUGO BOSS Group achieved free cash flow before dividend
payments of EUR 60.5 million during fiscal 2003, just under the record level of
the previous year (2002: EUR 61.0 million). This result was achieved by
ongoing measures to optimize inventories (2003: EUR 214.7 million; 2002:
EUR 218.1 million) and the reduced volume of capital expenditure at EUR 46.3
million (2002: EUR 68.4 million).
