99p Stores set for massive expansion

The single price retailer 99p Stores has revealed huge expansion plans to more than quadruple in size and hit 600 stores over the next decade.

99p Stores, which has 138 outlets, said the opening of a new warehouse last summer had given it the springboard to step up its store rollout, which will see it open 30 shops for the year to end of January 2012 and up to 60 units the following year.

Hussein Lalani, the commercial director of 99p Stores, said it also planned to open another warehouse inside the next two years to serve Scotland and the North-east and North-west, which will give its expansion further impetus. "Once we have got the secondary warehouse it will be full steam ahead," Mr Lalani said.

Founded in 2001, 99p Stores, which achieved a pre-tax profit of £1.79m last year, is confident of delivering a "quite significant" improvement on that performance for the 12 months to 31 January, said Mr Lalani.

He added trading over Christmas had been "very good" and while it had been affected by the snow, customers had "come back with a vengeance" once it had melted.

Meanwhile, Bargain Booze, the company behind 650 franchisee-run off-licences, has delivered a 17 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to £13.2m for the year to 30 April 2010. The retailer is backed by the private equity firm ECI Partners.