Revenue at the business fell slightly, down 0.8 per cent to $407 million. Kathmandu declared a 3 cent dividend, a 50 per cent rise on last year’s interim dividend. Shares rose slightly to $1.28 following the result.

Rip Curl, which has been Kathmandu’s key earner in recent years, had a sales uptick of 2.7 per cent for the half but also saw its earnings slide 30 per cent to $33 million. Oboz also had earnings fall by 30 per cent as it was heavily affected by a three-month closure of its key factories in Vietnam.

“It’s hard to go a day at the moment without getting a letter from some supplier saying ‘by the way, your prices are going up’.”

KMD chief executive Michael Daly

However, it was the company’s namesake brand that performed the worst over the half, with sales at Kathmandu declining 0.8 per cent to $128 million, and earnings diving nearly 300 per cent to a loss of $26.3 million.

Kathmandu did not provide any quantitative outlook for the second half of the year, however, Mr Daly said he was hopeful for a winter period unaffected by lockdowns.

“Kathmandu hasn’t been able to trade its peak winter season freely since 2019,” he said. “So we’re excited to be able to trade a full year with all of our stores for the Kathmandu brand.”

Loading

“And from a Rip Curl point of view, we’ve had good momentum for some time, so we’re just hopeful of overcoming those wetsuit issues and with no lockdowns, we’ll get to see the full benefits of that brand as well.”

Last week, Kathmandu cut off its Russian distributor due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, and on Wednesday Mr Daly said the business had no intention of starting to ship products again any time soon.

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.