Miss Selfridge losses balloon as sales slump

The retailer, which is part of Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia group, said pre-tax losses more than quadrupled to £17.5m in the year to September 1, 2018, compared to £4.3m the previous year.

Miss Selfridge’s total sales tumbled 15% to £102m.

The business booked more than £12m in one-off costs, which were largely as a result of property writedowns and redundancy costs, after the number of staff employed by its UK stores dropped by around 300 to 1,188.

Since the end of the accounting period, Miss Selfridge has axed more jobs and closed its Oxford Street flagship as part of Arcadia’s CVA plan.

The group, which also owns Topshop, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis and Evans, has indicated that Miss Selfridge will switch to selling predominantly online in the future.

Arcadia said in May that it plans to put the property holding companies of Miss Selfridge and Evans into administration. The move would result in the closure of another 25 stores, in addition to the 23 agreed as part of Arcadia’s CVA.

Taveta Investments, which owns Arcadia, admitted there was “material uncertainty” about whether it could continue trading without the injection of new funds. The group suffered a £177.3m loss last year.

The businesses long referred to as the jewels in the group’s crown, Topshop and Topman, slumped to a £505m loss after sales dropped 9% to £846.8m in the year to September 1, 2018.

Arcadia’s brands have struggled to adapt to the multichannel age, with online rivals such as Asos and Boohoo, and more nimble high street players including H&M, Zara and Primark all eroding the group’s market share and wooing its customers.