Ted Baker warned of the “extremely difficult” trading conditions on Tuesday that continue to impact the business’s performance.
Shares in the business were trading almost 26% lower on the announcement.
The luxury British fashion brand said that ongoing consumer uncertainty in a number of its key markets and elevated levels of promotional activity across its global markets have lead to “extremely” tough trading conditions during the current financial year.
As a result, the company expects that a few of these external factors will have an impact on its trade, and its trading partners, throughout the rest of the year.
Ted Baker has said that it now predicts underlying profit before tax for the financial year to lie in the range of £50 million to £60 million.
In addition to its warning of the difficult trading environment, the business also announced a 3.8% increase in its revenue for the 19 weeks to 08 June, when compared to the same period a year prior. Ted Baker added that this performance is a reflection of the difficult and uncertain trading conditions, the unseasonable weather to hit North America and the highly promotional retail environment across its global market.
“As a team, we are proactively addressing the challenges we face as an industry. Several of our new product initiatives will commence imminently and we are confident in our collections for the coming season. We are relentlessly focused on achieving cost efficiencies as well as further cost savings throughout the business,” Lindsay Page, Chief Executive Officer of Ted Baker, commented on the announcement.
Indeed, Ted Baker is not the only business to cite the difficult conditions to hit the UK high street, with retail sales dropping by 2.7% in May, according to data from the BRC.
Both in store and online, retailers have struggled to survive the uncertain trading conditions to hit the UK amid store closures and staff cuts.
As of 09:22 BST Tuesday, shares in Ted Baker plc (LON:TED) were trading at -25.78%.
