Primark positive over plans for April 12 reopening with 'worst behind us'

With stores shuttered around the world for the majority of its latest reporting period, Primark announced £1.1bn of lost sales in its interim results for the 24 weeks to February 27.

Bason, finance director of Primark owner Associated British Foods, said he believes “the worst is behind us” and is confident the retailer will open its doors in April.

Bason told Retail Week: “We can all say we’re not sure on the exact dates but I thought the roadmap was thoughtful.

“I liked the fact that there were five weeks between the stages – that allows four weeks for the analysis. I think its more likely than not that we will reopen on April 12.

”I compare the sentiment of these results to the statement in January when we had more stores than not closing rather than opening and a very real sense of ‘how long will this last?’

“But here we are at the end of February and it’s no longer ‘how many stores are closing?’, it’s ‘how quickly are they reopening?’”

As it did after previous lockdowns, Primark is expecting to reopen all 153 English stores in one go when regulations are lifted. 

Bason also said Primark has not ruled out extending opening hours if it sees customer interest and demand require it once stores reopen.

While “lockdown categories” such as loungewear and nightwear were most popular last year, Bason expected that the product mix will “rebalance” once consumers get confident returning to normal life.

He added: “I don’t think the popular product categories will change straight away but as we move towards June and July, the mix we have at the moment won’t be the permanent state of affairs. I can’t believe it would be, otherwise we’re going to have a lot of unhappy people around.

“It will rebalance, surely. I’m not saying to exactly to the way it was before with going out things and so on, but for a lot of adults, they haven’t bought anything in the last year and have some savings.”