By Grant Shepherd

SYDNEY: National franchisor BSR Australia Ltd has announced that despite the challenging global economic conditions it has continued to enjoy strong growth.

“As has now been provided in the 2009 Annual Report to our shareholders, I am pleased to announce we have maintained a high pass-through of rebates and bonuses to our retailers with 69.6 per cent of our total income returned to our group members,” announced BSR group general manager Ian Brown.

“Our intention is to ensure we maintain this level of return in the year to 31 March, 2010.”

In addition to this BSR has also expanded its existing retail membership base, by announcing a further seven new members to the group – in North Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the Northern Territory.

“The number of retailers joining our group is an obvious sign of strength of our brands.”

The retailer also highlighted that it is the second year in a row that the group has returned a strong profit to its shareholders. As well as this it is continuing to invest in its Retail Management IT System, and further upgrades to this project will be completed in September 2009.

The group is confident that this strong result will help set the platform for a successful BSR retailer national conference, which is going to be in Borneo in July.

“The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Maximising Your Assets’, with the focus on making the most of the assets at a retailer’s disposal including local and national staff, our brand heritage, our infrastructure and our networks,” said Brown.