By Michael Susin
ASOS backed its guidance for the fiscal year after losses narrowed in the first half, when core profitability began to improve under a new turnaround strategy, and named its new finance chief.
The online fashion retailer said Wednesday that it continues to expect sales to decline between 5% to 15% for the fiscal year ending September but anticipates positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization--which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--and cash generation.
Adjusted Ebitda for fiscal 2025 is expected to be significantly higher, supported by an improved gross margin following the removal of old stock and a higher full-price sales mix, along with continuing cost cutting.
For the first half ended March 3, the group reported a pretax loss of 270.0 million pounds ($335.5 million) compared with a loss of GBP290.9 million for the same period a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, pretax loss widened to GBP120.0 million from a loss of GBP87.4 million.
Adjusted revenue fell to GBP1.50 billion from GBP1.84 billion, with sales hurt by a continuing challenging backdrop and actions taken during the previous fiscal year to improve profitability.
The company said that more than 60% of sales are now excluded from promotions.
In a separate statement, ASOS said it appointed Dave Murray as chief financial officer with effect from April 29, replacing current interim CFO Sean Glithero.
Murray was CFO of e-commerce platform MatchesFashion and has experience across a range of finance roles in the retail and ecommerce industry, such as at Sainsbury's and Amazon in the U.K., before holding senior finance roles at Farfetch, ASOS sa
Write to Michael Susin at michael.susin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 17, 2024 02:51 ET (06:51 GMT)
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