Burberry shares plunge on shrinking wholesale revenues

Dive Brief:

Shares of Burberry fell the most they have in a year on Tuesday, going down as much as 10% in London after the upscale fashion retailer reported declines in its Asian and wholesale businesses, which offset a surge in home base U.K. sales of 30%, Bloomberg reports.
In the first half of the year, Burberry's wholesale revenue fell 14% (with a 25% decline from the U.S.), and its Hong Kong business fell more than 10%, the company said. Same-store sales remained flat in the second half of its fiscal year, with a 3% decline in the first quarter offset by a 2% increase in the second quarter, the first same-store sales growth in four quarters. Total revenues for the first half were £1.159 billion, down 4%, according to a company press release.
On a conference call with analysts, CFO Carol Fairweather said the company expects no change to retail space or licensing revenue for the second half of the fiscal year, and wholesale to be down "mid-teen."

Dive Insight:

Burberry CFO Carol Fairweather said the company is “delighted” with early results from its September runway show, where the collection was immediately available for purchase in store and online for the first time. The line was also promoted with the help of chatbots in Facebook's Messenger app. Fairweather said that the company continues to invest in and expand its e-commerce.

But gloomier aspects of the earnings results prompted the retailer's biggest intraday decline in a year, according to Bloomberg. Burberry is among retailers in a position to benefit from the fallout of this summer’s vote in the U.K. to leave the European Union, which helped depress the pound. Increased luxury spending from tourists boosted Burberry sales there by more than 30%. About 15% of its retail sales came from the U.K, up from 10% in the first half last year.

Noting that currency fluctuations are especially volatile, Burberry said the weak pound could add as much as 105 million pounds to full-year profit, up from its July estimate for a 90 million-pound boost, using an Oct. 12 exchange rate. Still, much of the benefit of the Brexit-induced favorability was wiped out by slacking demand in the U.S. and Hong Kong.

“In a challenging external environment, we continue to focus on product innovation, retail productivity and digital leadership, against a backdrop of sustained action and investment to deliver long-term outperformance of our brand and business,” CEO Christopher Bailey said in a statement. “The progress we are making to improve our ways of working, the agility of our teams to react to changes in consumer behaviour and the strength of our brand give us confidence for the future. We remain on track to deliver our financial goals.”