Annual sales at Liverpool-based national value retailer Home Bargains soared by 20% to £3.3bn with profits, staff numbers and store numbers also up. Tony McDonough reports

Liverpool-based value retail giant Home Bargains says sales hit just over £3.3bn in the 12 months to June 30, 2021 – 20% higher than the £2.8bn achieved in the previous year.

In newly-posted accounts on Companies House, TJ Morris (trading as Home Bargains) said pre-tax profits were up more than 50% to £396.7m. Based in Gillmoss in north Liverpool, the company now employs 27,553 people, up from 25,279.

Home Bargains was found by Tom Morris more than 40 years ago. It is now one of the fastest-growing retailers in the UK and goes head to head with B&M, which is based in south Liverpool, in the value retail market.

As of June 30 last year, the business operated 552 retail outlets across the UK. And it has big ambitions to grow even more. In the accounts it said: “The company intends to increase the number of retail outlets in operation in the year to June 30, 2022, and to eventually have between 800 and 1,000 retail outlets open.”

In January B&M said it expected full-year profits for the year to the end of March 2022 to be as high as £625m after enjoying strong trading in its so called ‘Golden Quarter’ in the run up to Christmas. The stock market-listed business will report its full-year results in May.

And it paid an extra week’s wages as a bonus to more than 24,000 staff members at the end of January to thank them for their “considerable efforts” during the year. From its head office and main distraction base in Speke, B&M operates 1,110 stores in the UK and France. 

This includes 693 B&M stores and 310 outlets of Frozen food chain Heron in the UK and 107 stores in France. The French chain was formerly known as Babou but now all but one has been rebranded as B&M.