LONDON (Alliance News) - John Lewis of Hungerford PLC on Friday reported a wider pretax loss in the first half of its financial year due to costs it booked and lower-than-expected revenue, and warned it expects to post a loss for the full year.
The kitchen, bedrooms and furniture retailer said its pretax loss in the six months ended February 29 widened to GBP430,000 from GBP204,000 in the first half of the prior year, despite revenue rising slightly to GBP3.6 million from GBP3.5 million.
John Lewis of Hungerford said sales were lower than its estimate of GBP4.0 million due to a number of orders being deferred to the second half of the year. This, and costs associated with "gearing the business for future growth", led to the wider pretax loss, it added.
The retailer said it has undertaken a review of the company's organisational structure in order to reduce costs and improve productivity, although this has resulted in a number of redundancies, including Installations Director Damian Walters who will leave the business at the end of the financial year.
"Although this has been a difficult process the board are determined to return the business to a position of generating positive shareholder returns," John Lewis of Hungerford said in a statement, adding that it expects to achieve an annualised saving of GBP300,000 from the beginning of the next financial year as a result of the changes.
John Lewis of Hungerford said its order book stood at GBP4.5 million at the end of the first half, which is up 5% on the prior-year period. Third-quarter sales are expected to be around 13% higher than the previous year's GBP1.9 million.
"Although the second half year is traditionally our stronger trading period we consider it unlikely that the losses in the first half will be recovered in full and therefore expect to report a loss for the full year," the company said.
Shares in John Lewis of Hungerford were untraded on Friday, having last traded at 1.06 pence.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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