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LONDON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - British women's clothingretailer Bonmarche warned on profit on Wednesday asunseasonably hot September weather hit demand, hammering itsstock price.
Shares in Bonmarche, which predominantly serves the 50 pluswomen's clothing market, fell up to 31 percent, taking itsdecline so far this year to more than 50 percent.
Analysts said the warning could have implications for thebigger players in Britain's clothing market, who have alreadyendured unhelpful summer weather patterns, with June a washout.
Bonmarche said trading in September so far had been"extremely poor", largely as a consequence of hot weather whichhas not favoured sales of its new autumn ranges.
"The hot September has prevented us from gaining arepresentative measure of the strength of the autumn ranges, andour perception is that the clothing market generally has becomemore challenging," said the firm.
It forecast an 8 percent decline in underlying store salesfor the second quarter and lowered its second-half profitexpectations.
Bonmarche forecast a pretax profit for 2016-17 of 5-7million pounds ($6.5-$9.1 million). Analysts at Investec werepreviously forecasting 12.5 million pounds.
"Attention now turns to whether Marks & Spencer andDebenhams will have to bring forward their plannedupdates on current trading," said independent retail analystNick Bubb.
Both M&S and Debenhams declined to comment.
M&S is due to publish half-year results on Nov. 8, whileDebenhams is due to report full-year results on Oct. 27.
M&S' new boss Steve Rowe has pledged to turn around M&S'sstruggling clothing business by improving ranges andavailability, cutting prices and offering fewer promotions.
However, his plan, outlined in May, came with a warning of ashort-term dent to sales and profit and in July the 132-year-oldgroup reported its worst quarterly clothing sales performancefor a decade.
Shares in M&S, down 28 percent so far this year, were up 0.4percent at 0932 GMT. Debenhams shares, down 23 percent in 2016,were flat.($1 = 0.7709 pounds) (Reporting by James Davey, editing by Louise Heavens)
