Tailoring firm Moss Bros sees profits dip after year-end challenges

Men’s tailoring business Moss Bros Group PLC saw profits dip in 2017 after a challenging end to the year.

The London-headquartered company made a pre-tax profit of £6.71m in the 12 months to January 27 2018, down from £7.15m the year previous.

Revenues for the period were up, rising from £127.93m in 2016 to £131.77m last year.

In a statement this morning (March 27), Moss Bros attributed the results to a “tough end to the year, with poor December footfall” but said e-commerce sales “made good progress”.

The company also reported seeing the benefits of ongoing investment in its products and the development of its sub-brands both in the UK and overseas, including its Moss London offering.

Brian Brick, Moss Bros chief executive officer, said: “It is frustrating that after a strong first half performance, which continued into the third quarter of the year, the final quarter’s performance was below the level we had forecast.

“We suffered from a significant stock shortage, due to the poor implementation of the project to consolidate suppliers. We left ourselves with too little ‘running line’ stock to close out the year having bought cautiously for the second half of 2017. This has continued to hamper our performance into the start of the year.”

He added: “In spite of this issue, we have continued to progress the modernisation of the store portfolio, which is nearing completion and develop our omni-channel shopping proposition, including a better level of customer segmentation.”

Speaking further, Mr Brick said the company is now planning for an “extremely challenging retail environment”, in part because of an “uncertain consumer environment and significant cost headwinds”.

He continued: “However, there is no question that we have hampered our own position through the stock shortages and as this gets back on track, our strong consumer proposition is restoring momentum. We will ensure that we continue to invest in this proposition to protect our position.”