KCQ's about RCG

First Impressions

-RGC has well-known and popular companies.

-Seems to be a relatively new corporation signing The Athletes Foot (TAF) in 2009, followed by other companies only in the past few years, with Instride Shoe signed up as recent as August 2014.

-RCG has a very experienced board of directors with Michael Hirschowitz (Finance Director & Company Secretary, Member of Audit Committee) joining the firm after a long time career as a manager at The Athletes Foot.

-RCG has in previous years had extensive media coverage, mainly newspaper articles (online). However the past 3 years this has significantly decreased.

-RCG offers jobs in customer service, merchandising, marketing, sales, finance, IT, Administration and Human resources.

-It was pleasing to see that RCG’s workforce is made up of 50% of women.

 

KCQ’s reading RCG’s 2014 annual report. Chairman and CEO Review

-What does EBITDA stand for? As this was repeatedly used in my Annual report I wanted to understand what this meant. After a short google search I found that it is a company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

 

-Report states RCG has had a 12.0% increase on consolidated EBITDA from the previous financial year. Is this percentage a good increase? Compared to other companies?

By researching other retail companies I was able to compare RCG’s consolidated EBITDA.

 

Using a variety retail company from different areas. The findings were;

RCG (shoes/footwear) – Increase in EBITDA of 12.0%

Flight centre (Travel) – Decrease in EBITDA of 4.01%

Michael Hill (jewellery) - Decrease in EBITDA of 0.87%

ahlers (Men’s clothing) – Decrease in EBITDA of 15.9%

These are not all of them of course and some have only decreased slightly, however RCG has made a significant increase.

-The total cumulative returns to shareholders seems to be impressive. Is it, compared to other companies?

 RCG’s report shows a chart displaying their total cumulative returns to shareholders against 2 other firms. This looks does look impressive! This chart shows that RCG compared to other firms are returning significantly more over the past 6 years. Not only are the returns high but it also had a high rate of growth over this period also.

 

-2014 saw (TAF) complete a number of long-term projects designed to significantly enhance customer service and experience. This is a great aspect to mention and is important in any retail industry.  The report states that this is what has helped TAF maintain their position as a premium retailer.

 

“TAF has also now completed the full implementation and deployment of Adobe Campaign, one of the world’s leading customer relationship management and cross-channel marketing platforms, providing even greater insights into customer behaviours across all channels and enabling more targeted and customised consumer messaging.”

 

-I found this very impressive and innovative, taking part in management campaigns such as this shows the corporation is committed to improving their management in the contemporary workplace.

 

-The report states that RCG had been successful in a difficult year for retail. Has 2014 been a difficult year for retail?

  I found an article written about RCG and how they have fared during what is said to be a difficult year for retail. It was very interesting to see that RCG has in fact done very well and this article gives praise to them. http://www.fool.com.au/2014/09/19/3-dividend-stocks-for-the-perfect-retirement-portfolio/. I understand I will learn more about their success when I read the financial reports.