Furniture and electricals retailer BrightHouse has posted soaring profits as credit-crunched consumers flock to its stores.

The retailer, whose low-income customers pay for goods by weekly instalments, revealed a 60 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to£20.1 million in the year to March 31.

BrightHouse sales rose 12.7 per cent to£145.9 million and like-for-likes advanced 11.7 per cent.

BrightHouse, backed by private equity firm Vision Capital, had 157 shops at the end of its last financial year and will open another 25 this year in the expectation of continued strong trading.

BrightHouse chief executive Leo McKee said: “Our growth has accelerated as we have opened stores, which are exceeding expectations. We have gained strong traction from our customer-focused strategy by improving operational execution in stores.”

BrightHouse reduced bad debt, as measured by customer arrears, to 5.74 per cent last year compared with 6.54 per cent the previous year.

The retailer has secured a new long-term banking facility from Landsbanki, which it said provides “significant headroom to fund growth.”

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