Carpetright sales drop as CFO leaves but pace of decline slows
Carpetright’s UK like-for-like sales fell in the three months to the end of January, but the pace of decline slowed compared to the first half of the year, the retailer said in a trading update today.
“Trading patterns have remained volatile week to week, against a backdrop of uncertainty and weak consumer confidence,” the company said.
Read more: Carpetright losses widen amid major restructuring
Sales in mainland Europe grew compared to the same period last year driven by a strong performance in the Netherlands.
The company said it remained on target to achieve £19m in cash savings announced as part of its recapitalisation in May 2018.
Shares fell 3.29 per cent to 20.6p.
Carpetright also said today its chief financial officer (CFO) Neil Page was stepping down, to be replaced by Jeremy Simpson from 25 February.
Simpson was most recently chief financial officer of Sureserve Group from 2014.
Read more: Store closures hit Carpetright sales
Chief executive Wilf Walsh said: "As CFO, Neil has made an outstanding contribution to Carpetright over many years and the board wishes to express its gratitude for his unstinting commitment to the business, particularly through the recent challenging period of restructuring.
"We are delighted that Jeremy is joining us as CFO – he has a strong plc track record and will be able to integrate swiftly into the executive team."
Amy Higginbotham, retail analyst at Globaldata, said: ‘‘Carpetright has failed to reassure investors this morning with a lacklustre and sketchy trading update, causing shares to fall 2.4 per cent in morning trading. Carpetright did not give a like-for-like figure for the third quarter, only saying that the number was negative, but claimed that it showed an improvement on the first hald when like-for-likes fell 12.7 per cent."