Cycling boom pushes Halfords annual profit towards 100 million pounds

(Reuters) - Halfords forecast an over 60% jump in its annual profit and said it would repay the near 11 million pounds it received in government furlough support as the bicycle retailer benefits from a cycling boom during lockdowns.

Shares in the company jumped another 16% to 335 pence by 0830 GMT on Monday, having surged more than six-fold from pandemic lows hit in March.

The company, which also does motoring services and sells car parts, said its overall business has been performing stronger than anticipated despite volatile trading in the first seven weeks of the fourth quarter.

Halfords estimated annual underlying pretax profit of between 90 million pounds and 100 million pounds ($125.78 million and $139.75 million) for the year ending in March, compared with 55.9 million pounds a year earlier.

Peel Hunt analysts raised their annual profit estimate to 95 million pounds from 76 million pounds after the unscheduled trading update and suggested that Halfords was likely reinstate its dividend sometime this year.

Halfords, which availed 10.7 million in furlough support from the government, had said in July it could make a loss of 10 million pounds for fiscal 2021 under a worst-case scenario.

But in the first seven weeks of the fourth quarter, Halfords' like-for-like sales for cycling rose 43%, offsetting a 14% fall in its high-margin motoring businesses.

Cycling also drove a more than doubling of interim profits in November as Britons took up the hobby to avoid public transport, as well as for its appeal as a healthier alternative.

($1 = 0.7156 pounds)

(Reporting by Chris Peters and Muvija M in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Aditya Soni)