New Look has tough Q1 as sales and profits plunge

Fashion retailer New Look’s bonds hit fresh lows on Tuesday on the back of poor quarterly results it had just released.

The UK chain’s results showed the company’s adjusted Ebitda declining 37.3% to £27.2m, for the 13 weeks ending June 24.

It said this was due to the challenges it faced in UK sales and investment in strategic initiatives.

Revenue fell 4.4% to £338.7m with New Look Brand like-for-like sales down 8.2%, UK like-for-like sales down 7.5% and own website sales down 0.6%.

While Third Party E-commerce sales rose 15.7%, that was the best news as underlying operating profit fell 60.3% to £12.1m and the loss after tax was £15.2m after a profit of £5.8m a year ago.

CEO Anders Kristiansen said: “As expected, the UK market has remained difficult, which has resulted in a disappointing quarter of trading.

We have managed the business accordingly by controlling costs, tactical investment in our strategic initiatives and enhancing our product proposition.”

He added: “The evolution of our product proposition continues, and will be bolstered by the arrival of our new Chief Creative Officer, Paula Dumont Lopez, in September.

We are pleased with our continued expansion in China, where we opened another 17 stores taking the total number to 127. In the UK, we are now trialling our new store concept and are encouraged by the early results.