Ann: Half Yearly Report and Accounts, page-41

But in terms of making an informed decision, you can (and I suggest here need to) do much better than look at things as how they look now. The history of retail sales in the coutry, and just how cyclical it is, needs to be taken into account. Then look at sales of a retailer such as HVN and see how they correlate to those revenues. The track record of how HVN's margins have varied with that cycle also need to be taken into account. Valuation assuming less than buoyant conditions would have to be more sensible than valuation assuming buoyant ones. No?

If you are a francisee, if sales drop by X%, you still have to pay leases and wages, and (hopefully) franchise fees, and given that your margins are modest, that means profits will fall far further than X%.