Floorings retailer Carpetright has issued its second profit warning in four months as the European arm of its business continued to struggle.
The company blamed poor trading in the Netherlands, and after the impact of currency movements, total sales in Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands fell 6.3 per cent.
Total sales were up 0.6 per cent but European sales fell 7.5 per cent.
A 1.9 per cent like-for-like (LFL) UK sales rise, which was boosted by its “self-help” programme with over half of its 473 stores now modernised, was not enough to prevent the unwelcome news.
Carpetright said: “We now expect our full year underlying pre-tax profit to be below the lower end of current market expectations.”
Lord Harris, who is a non-executive director at Matalan and on the Arsenal FC board, came out of retirement in October to take over the flagging firm from outgoing Darren Shapland.
Greg Bromley, Retail Consultant at Conlumino, commented: “(Carpetright‘s) tight financial control, alongside one further store closure in the period, has gone some way to offsetting the margin squeezing effects of promotional activity and competitive discounting across the sector.”
