Don’t be fooled by Superdry’s (SDRY) statutory numbers. The clothing chain sealed its first-half results release with yet another profit warning. Analysts at Peel Hunt called the scale of the downgrade – specifically that underlying profits will now land somewhere between £55m and £70m by the financial year-end – “surprising”, making a 30 per cent cut to its own forecasts. Analysts there now expect pre-tax profits of £59.7m, giving EPS of 58.3p, compared with £97m and 93.1p in FY2018.
Suffice to say, it’s been a terrible year for Superdry as bosses blame unusual weather patterns and a “discount-driven consumer economy” for the continued sales slump. Warmer weather in November and into December offset a “strong” Black Friday performance, too, with bosses estimating an adverse £11m hit to profits in November alone. Margins have also taken a beating: the underlying operating margin nearly halved from 6.7 per cent to 3.6 per cent, reflecting higher central costs as well as a squeezed gross product margin following prolific discounting in the retail business and a higher proportion of low-margin wholesale revenues.
| SUPERDRY (SDRY) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 395p | MARKET VALUE: | £324m | |
| TOUCH: | 393-395p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 2,050p | LOW: 374p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 7.95%* | PE RATIO: | 5 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 499p | NET CASH: | £19.2m | |
| Half-year to 27 Oct | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2017 | 402 | 9.1 | 9.7 | 9.3 |
| 2018 | 415 | 26.4 | 24.7 | 9.3 |
| % change | +3 | +190 | +155 | - |
| Ex-div: | 20 Dec | |||
| Payment: | 25 Jan | |||
| *Excludes previously announced 25p special dividend (Paid: 14 Dec Ex-div: 11 Oct) | ||||
