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The UK’s largest fishing tackle retailer, which hit its £100m revenue target in the last financial year, has reiterated its ambitious plans to develop a sustainable European business.
In a week when Angling Direct posted record sales of £103.9m – up 13% on the previous year – it upgraded its medium-term objectives (first revealed in May 2024) which include targeting Europe through focusing on Germany and the Netherlands and funding any profitable expansion from existing cash.
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Steve Crowe told investors: “The opportunity to grow market share in Europe remains a realistic ambition with the markets in Germany and the Netherlands alone being over twice the size of the UK’s.
“However, during the year, the European digital landscape remained challenging with significant pressure on both retail prices and paid advertising costs,” he said, adding that Angling Direct remained focused on making the most of trading in its key European territories. “This approach provides a clear focus on delivering profitable sales to protect margins and further reduce further digital losses and their impact on group earnings, while preserving the flexibility to increase investment if European market conditions recover sufficiently to justify additional capital deployment.”
FY26 also saw the first full year of trading at Angling Direct’s first store on mainland Europe, with the outlet in Utrecht, Netherlands delivering a break event result. “The European retailing landscape for our industry is currently more uncertain than the UK and is characterised by intense pricing competition,” said Crowe. “While the competitive market is creating opportunities for the group, we keep EU trading under continual evaluation, maintaining a balance between market optionality and a forward-looking view of the likely returns that could be generated.
“Despite the competitive markets, we continue to believe that there is significant longer-term opportunity in Europe to underpin the sustained growth trajectory for the group and this will create an opportunity for value creation, much as it has done in the UK.”
Angling Direct is also looking to create Europe’s largest fishing club through its successful MyAD loyalty card which saw membership increase by nearly 50% year-on-year to over 600,000. “We are increasingly confident that our unique and deepening data-driven insights into the needs and preferences of anglers will drive improved performances in revenues and operations through growing levels of loyalty.”
Its revised aims also include increasing revenue from UK sales to £125m a year and becoming angling retail’s largest responsible employer.
During the last financial year, Angling Direct opened six new outlets to take its store portfolio to 58 and further its expansion in bricks and mortar. “We remain focused on our store roll-out strategy, developing greenfield sites alongside our store acquisition pipeline, both in our traditional size and more latterly smaller locations. During the year we invested £2.5m in assets and working capital across our six new UK locations,” said Crowe.
He added: “We are pleased to see the strong momentum built throughout FY26 continue into the new financial year with group revenue increasing 9.7% in February. However, as has been widely reported across the UK retail sector, following the onset of the Middle East conflict we have experienced softer trading and additional costs, including distribution fuel charges and increased freight.
“The group has mitigated these so there is no impact on our 2027 expectations at this stage, and we continue to review levers to offset any further additional short-term costs through savings elsewhere.
“Despite these short-term challenges, the Board remains confident in the long-term growth prospects for Angling Direct and we are pleased to announce upgraded medium-term objectives, having substantially achieved the existing targets in the two years since publication.”
