In spite of tough trading conditions, the clothing retailer, Moss Bros Group has continued to make great progress in turning its business around and reported a rise of 12.5 percent in its full year like-for-like sales including VAT to £101.15 million. Like-for-like retail sales rose by 13.1 percent and hire sales by 10.1 percent.

The group is also progressing plans for an integrated e-commerce offering and exploring ways of leveraging the customer data, whilst at the same time applying careful management of its costs, to ensure it has resilience if there is another downturn in consumer spending.

Moss Bros' pre-tax profit from continuing operations was ahead of expectations at £0.9 million, compared to a loss of £8.9 million during previous year, with profit earnings per share at 7.27 pence.

"We have continued with our work on the new store fits, to improve the customer perception of the brand and to improve financial returns. During 2012-13 we will continue to carry out test refits on selected stores, to assess the impact on sales," said CEO Brian Brick.

The group remains confident in its strategy and ability to drive profitable growth. Further opportunities for growth are well supported by its strong balance sheet, and this gives the board confidence that it will maximise the potential of the Moss brand and create shareholder value in the process.

The board has proposed a dividend of 0.4 pence per share for the first time after 2007.

London