Cold weather puts a chill in Bonmarché’s profit predictions
VALUE women’s clothing retailer Bonmarché has warned its full year profits will be down on last year, as cold weather means post Christmas trading continues to be tough.
In December Bonmarche issued a profit warning and forecast its full year pre-tax profits to be between £10.5m and £12m.
Today, the Wakefield business announced that they would be “at the lower end” of those expectations. In its 2015 financial year, it generated pre-tax profits of £12.4m on sales of £178.6m.
But there was some good news – total sales increased by 5.3% for the year ended 26 March 2016, while like-for-like sales increased by 1.0%, including online.
The company has also increased its number of stores during the year by 20 to 312.
Beth Butterwick, chief executive of Bonmarche, said: “Post-Christmas, trading conditions have continued to be quite challenging, with the exception of January where we saw a higher than average demand for autumn/winter sale stock. Although helpful in clearing these ranges, the continued colder weather has been unhelpful in kick-starting real demand for spring products.
“Overall, consumer confidence does not appear buoyant and, given that context, I believe that the provisional results represent a creditable performance.
“Our financial position continues to remain healthy and our final autumn/winter terminal stock position has ended better than expected, and lower than last year. Our expectation is that trading conditions will remain challenging, and therefore our outlook for the FY17 result is cautious.”
Last week the company announced the appointment of Helen Connolly as chief executive officer.
Ms Connolly is currently senior buying director for George at Asda, responsible for women’s clothing, non-clothing and essentials, and will take up her position later in the year.
Beth Butterwick, who has been in the role for four years, is moving on to international fashion house Karen MIllen.
Full results for the year ended March 26, 2016 will be released in June.
