Ted Baker hails excellent Christmas trading

Fashion brand Ted Baker said it had a very good Christmas trading period despite, as usual, not embarking on any significant promotional activity.Retail sales in the eight weeks to January 7th were up 15.7% on the corresponding period of the year before, helped somewhat by a 7.3% increase in average retail square footage.Sales since Christmas have remained strong and the group expects to end the season with a clean stock position.Profit before tax for the current financial year, which ends on January 28th, is expected by the board to be in line with expectations. Market consensus is for profit before tax of £26.25m, up from £24.23m the year before."Whilst we are very mindful of the wider macro-economic uncertainty, we remain focused on the strategic development of the brand and look forward to the exciting opening of our store on Fifth Avenue, New York towards the middle of 2012 as well as the openings of our first stores in Tokyo in March and Beijing in June," said founder and chief executive of the group, Ray Kelvin. jh