Carpetright slumps to full-year loss

Struggling floor coverings retailer Carpetright reported a loss for 2017-18 on Tuesday in line with a previous profit warning and said underlying sales had continued to fall in its new financial year, hit by stock shortages and warm weather.

Carpetright has raised new equity and is closing stores to survive after creditors approved a restructuring plan. Its shares have crashed 81 per cent over the last year.

The company, which has 20 stores in Ireland, made an underlying pretax loss of £8.7 million in the year to April 28th against a profit of £14.4 million in 2016-17. Revenue fell 3 per cent to £443.8 million.

Earlier this month, Carpetright raised £65 million through an equity issue, while in April creditors and shareholders backed a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) restructuring to close stores and cut jobs.

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The firm said 81 UK stores will close by the end of September.

Carpetright said UK like-for-like sales remained negative in the first eight weeks of its 2018-19 year, reflecting disruption due to its restructuring activity, in particular stock shortages as some suppliers had withdrawn supply, and the period of warm weather. – Bloomberg