Strong international expansion has helped to drive a 3.9 per cent rise in pre-tax profits at Next, the fashion and homeware retailer.
The FTSE 100 company reported significant growth outside Britain, with full-price sales in its overseas division rising by 23 per cent to £433 million in the first half of the financial year.
An increase in international revenues and a recovery in transactions in the UK lifted total group sales to £2.95 billion in the six months to July, up 8 per cent from the previous year.
“Our overseas sales did much better in the first half than we anticipated, in the UK they did pretty much as expected,”Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise, the chief executive of Next, said.
In Ireland, where the retailer