I feared this may be an unwelcome start to the confession...

I feared this may be an unwelcome start to the confession season, particulary in light of all the publicity around the unseasonal warm autumn in southern Australia and the impact it is having on retailers. But a pleasant surprise.

While it seems a modest upgrade of about 8% to FY18 EBIT, the implied LFL sales growth in the last 8 weeks is somewhere around 22%, so they are surely doing something right.

Anyone have any thoughts on the capital management initiative? My thinking is that a special dividend could be on the cards with the final dividend, to distribute franking credits. This may also be reinforced with boards now having to factor in a possible change to imputation credit refunds being claimed, and the pull forward of special dividends in case the Senate was to pass such changes.

In valuation terms, if we see EBITDA of $51m for FY18, and are looking at a EV of around $350m at year end - this trades on a multiple of less than 7 at a share price of $2.00. With such minimal debt and still scope to expand, that looks fairly compelling value in this market IMO.