Miss Selfridge posts £17.5m loss, switches focus to online

Miss Selfridge has recorded a £17.5m loss having been forced to write-down the value of loss-making stores and said it is focusing its attentions on its online business moving forward.

Part of Sir Philip Green's retail empire, the chain saw sales drop 15% to £102m in the year to 1 September 2018, while pre-tax losses increased more than four-fold from £4.3m in the prior year.

The increase in losses was largely due to £12m in one-off payments relating to property write-downs and redundancy costs. Arcadia has said the business will largely be focused on its online activity moving forward.

Miss Selfridge has already given up its Oxford Street flagship and moved into a space in the neighbouring store of its stablemate Topshop. Arcadia has leased the store to footwear business Van.

As part of a restructuring process, which is in addition to its series of CVAs agreed in June, Arcadia has said some 25 Evans and Miss Selfridge stores would close. These closures are yet to take place.

Earlier this month it was reported that losses at Topman and Topshop had widened to £550m following £488.8 million in charges, including for onerous shop leases on loss-making stores and write downs on the value of assets.

Taveta Investments, which is the holding company of Arcadia, showed a loss of £177.3 million for the year to September 2018.

As part of Arcadia's CVA plans the group plans to close 23 stores (in addition the 25 Miss Selfridge and Evans stores) and secure rent cuts of up to 50% on dozens more.