Blacks Leisure, the outdoor clothing items' retailer, shared that it is on a "much stronger footing" after reporting a successful trading period during the Christmas period.

In November last year, the company had managed to get into a rescue plan with the approval of its creditors, and had closed as many as 87 stores which had not been performing well.

For the 6 months up-to 7 January, the retailer revealed that like-for-like sales across all its remaining stores had surged by 12%, compared to last year, with sales during the 6-week Christmas season up by 15%.

According to Blacks, the company had benefitted mostly from the unusually cold weather conditions which had prevailed over the past few weeks.

"What had gone wrong with the business was that it had branched out into a sector called boardwear, which is surf clothing, and a lot of what we closed was connected to that. The business had diversified; it had got into the wrong kind of markets. We have gone back to the core markets", said Chief Executive Neil Gillis.

Currently, the group operates 208 Millets stores, 92 Blacks outlets and 13 Freespirit stores.