British fashion chain New Look has struggled in the current fiscal year: turnover dropped more than 6 % in the first three quarters. The company is also in the middle of a new strategy implementation.
High discounts
“As we expected, Q3 trading remained challenging, with sales and margins impacted by the high level of discounts”, executive chairman Alistair McGeorge said. “Our immediate priority is to exit the current financial year without excess stock. By entering FY19 with clean stock levels, we will be in a good position to deliver a strong full price Spring/Summer offer.”
In New Look’s first three quarters, turnover dropped 6.3 % to 1.069 billion pounds (1.2 billion euro), with a 10.6 % like-for-like turnover drop and a 10.7 % drop in the United Kingdom alone. There was also a 15 % drop in its own web shop. The only turnover increase, at 21.9 %, was with external online third parties. In the end, New Look had to present a 123.5 million pound (140 million euro) EBITDA loss.
“I am confident that we are now making the necessary changes to get the company back on track and we continue to have sufficient liquidity to deliver our planes”, McGeorge added.
