‘Mango is back’ is the mantra for the boss of the Spanish fashion store

Mango is back is the phrase often repeated by founder Isak Andic about the Spanish fashion chain which returned to profit after three years of being in the red.

By the end of 2019, turnover had grown by just over 6 per cent and profits were declared at €21 million (compared to 2018 loss of €36 million).

Clearly the effects of the State of Emergency will restrict the company results for 2020 but as so much has been done to restructure, it should be possible to quickly get back on track once the Mango stores in Spain are able to re-open.

It has been a hard few years for the company with major restructuring of the logistics of the business, the IT and online presence and the actual clothes that were being produced and last year saw record sales achieved.

One major and ongoing programme is the closure of smaller stores that do not return sufficient levels of profit and their replacement with larger establishments although Mango is also positioning itself inside department stores, especially in Germany.

It is trialling RFID technology which is “radio-frequency identification” and refers to a technology whereby digital data encoded in RFID tags or smart labels are captured by a reader via radio waves in ten stores.

It expects this to spread to all of its outlets which should improve stock control and efficiency considerably.

Debt is being reduced and augmented by the issue of short of term bonds which reduce interest payments, so it does look as if Mango is back.