www.supergroup.co.uk

SPG's progress over last few years has been consistent-continued growth and bottom line profit. Financials are sound and unlike many other retailers not over borrowed. Although 3 weeks lower than expected trading figures in Jan, trading patterns are changing in a number of sectors. Like Burberry, I would much rather be a "high end label" and one that is liked by the youngsters than a discount retailer. Retailers like French Connection and Supergroup which are still making profits and not increasing debt in the current retail environment arer the ones that I would rather hold when we come out of recession. Youngsters in the UK still spend on "labels" and this trend is expanding all over the world. Whilst Supergroup may well drop to 450p, I believe it will quickly head back up to £6+ the further into 2012 we go and the growth story continues. The share price fall has been on very low volumes. A few serious buyers at decent volumes would soon change the pattern. Hang on in.

22% of people out of work are Youngsters.AB FOODS FOR me now, PRIMARK. ABF1219p SGP519p

Fall today ?

SuperGroup Plc

Update

SuperGroup Plc ('SuperGroup' or 'the Group'), today provides an update on profit guidance for the financial year to 29 April 2012.

The Group expects profit before tax for the full year to be approximately £43m. The most material reasons for this are:

There have been arithmetic errors in our forecast of the Wholesale business amounting to some £2.5m.

Also, the Wholesale business is multi-dimensional, experiencing high growth levels and, given our rapid expansion and lack of history, it is difficult to predict accurately. There is a shortfall in the current year of some £2.0m due to the particular timing of pull-down of stock over the year end period by both franchise and wholesale customers. As this is largely a timing issue, the majority of these sales will fall into our FY13 result.

Retail sales are in line with expectations, however, the mix of sales through our various channels has impacted margins. Additionally, we took the decision to increase our operating costs in order to ensure that we had the correct product at the right time in each of our retail channels, and also, to accelerate investment in our management team. We anticipate the impact of these factors to be some £2.0m in total.

The above factors will have a minimal impact on our projections for FY13.

We intend to issue our IMS on 10 May 2012, as planned.

this company has badly blotted its copybook over the last year or so, and i would expect the market to react pretty brutally

Just the 35% down then.

CFO doesnt know the difference between a + and a - you just have to feel sorry for shareholders, how long has this arithmetic error been going on who are their auditors? sell.

Agree Halifax and other posts today.
+I've never understood the Market desire for this stock. PE is way too high, +no yield so it's all on Hope . .. and I suspect this second PW won't be the last . . . Management must use this turmoil to clear out any other bad news . . . and - pronto.

However, I understand most shares are held privately (Family?), so there will be long face around the dinner table tonight.

£16 this time last year, now £3.60-ish (briefly under £3 soon?)
Never held, yet it's not often a fully working business falls 40% in a day....Ouch!

Whilst the reported error is quite small as a % of Profits, it just adds to an overall feeling this is a wrong'un...IMHO. Time will tell.

Buy at 90p imo.

That's Black and White mentality. Negative means zero for some of these guys.

This is a disgrace.

..Questor share tip: Avoid SuperGroup despite share price slide

By Garry White | Telegraph – 38 minutes ago

Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was SuperGroup (LSE: SGP.L - news) shares slumping by more than a third on Friday after it issued its third profit warning in seven months.

The company, which makes Superdry-branded clothes, had to confess it had got its sums wrong. There was an “arithmetic error” made in previous forecasts, which really does not inspire confidence.

As a result and because of timing issues with stock the company now sees full-year pre-tax profits of about £43m, down from previous expectations of £50m.

Supergroup has managed to prove the old stock market adage that profit warnings come in threes.

The first warning in October was caused by teething troubles in a new computer system. This “caused a significant, temporary reduction both in the amount of stock and range of sizes reaching its UK stores”. This, it said, would knock between £6m to £9m off its profit.

Then, in February, the company revealed there had been a slowdown in sales after Christmas. Profit guidance was cut again to the lower end of the £50m-£54m range.

ALL was looking well for SuperGroup until the latest disaster.

The company rectified its supply chain problems and beefed up its board.It poached John Lewis Partnership’s director of fashion and beauty four weeks ago,

Susanne Given, the ex-managing director of TK Maxx, also joined, as chief operating officer, so that chief executive Julian Dunkerton could focus on strategy.

Habitat’s Shaun Wills took over as chief financial officer from Chas Howes, who stepped down due to personal reasons. Things were looking up.

The market does not take mistakes such as “accounting errors” very lightly. It is going to take some time for the company’s credibility in the City to be rebuilt.

The fashion industry is difficult enough, being driven by many here-today-gone-tomorrow brands. Just last week Jaeger and Aquascutum hit the skids.

There is no doubt the shares now look cheap but things can be cheap for a reason.

Brave punters may wish to bet on a recovery but Questor would continue to avoid the shares, as has been the recommendation for some time.

one is tempted to think that there is still a fair bit of downside here for shorting, but it's a very illiquid stock and MMs will beat us to it before the opening bell

Unfortunately CMC don't cover it - I tried 1st thing on Friday.

IG certainly do

Interim Management Statement.

..SuperGroup growth slows for fourth quarter in a row

By Jamie Dunkley | Telegraph – 48 minutes ago



SuperGroup (LSE: SGP.L - news) has played down suggestions that its Superdry fashion label is losing its appeal with shoppers after growth slowed for the fourth consecutive quarter.

The retailer, whose clothes are worn by celebrities such as David Beckham and Pippa Middleton, saw sales rise 14pc to £75.2m in the 13 weeks to April 29, its fiscal fourth quarter.

The slowdown from third-quarter growth of 25.3pc was blamed on the tough retail environment.

Julian Dunkerton, chief executive, said: "I'm fully confident that the brand is strong and healthy and alive. You have to remember we have grown by 675pc in four years and we are now building up the structure to assist us going forward."

In March, SuperGroup poached John Lewis Partnership's director of fashion and beauty as it attempts to beef up its board.

Retail veteran Susanne Given took up the newly created role of chief operating officer in a move designed to give Mr Dunkerton more time to focus on strategy and branding.

Ms Given, previously managing director of TK Maxx, the discount fashion retailer, will concentrate on improving the company's operation and efficiency across its UK retail business.

More than £170m was wiped off the value of Supergroup's shares on April 20 after the fashion company admitted it couldn't count and blamed "arithmetic errors" for a calamitous profit warning.

At the time, said it would it miss annual profit forecasts by about £7.5m because of mistakes in its wholesale business, apparently down to a "plus" sign accidentally being entered in accounts instead of a "minus".

Jonathan Pritchard, retail analyst at Oriel Securities, said on Thursday: "At the moment it's a very long road in front of them, to restore trust after three profit warnings in the last year. But the new management team clearly has the credentials to do so."

SuperGroup shares rose 26 to 333.25p.

Jean Roche, analyst at Panmure Gordon, added: "Remaining shareholders will take some small comfort in the fact that the company's full-year profit guidance of £43m is unchanged."

..

avoid unless you want to gamble on a high street fashion company where the management hold all the cards

Is this worth a short friday?

We all like a short Friday! :-)