Burberry watchers to learn if new designer is a good fit

INVESTORS in Burberry will find out just how fashionable Riccardo Tisci’s new range is on Thursday.

The fashion house’s shares have performed well since July when it revealed its new chief designer’s collection had been well received by its customers. This helped to spur a 4 per cent rise in like-for-like retail sales in the first quarter.

The question now is whether it kept that up in the following three months, especially with the unrest in Hong Kong which makes up around 8 per cent of its sales.

Number-crunchers at UBS and Morgan Stanley forecast a 5 per cent rise, indicating they believe Burberry has shrugged off the problems there.

That’s no mean feat given that Morgan Stanley reckons sales of luxury goods in Hong Kong have slumped by 50 per cent in recent months.

‘During the recent store tour, management indicated that it will be hard to recover all the lost sales there [in Hong Kong] into other Asian countries,’ it said.

They also have to contend with a fall in the value of the Chinese yuan, which could limit spending from wealthy Chinese tourists in London.

ITV received a shot in the arm from the England rugby team’s run to the World Cup final, which will have helped to reel in advertisers.

But even that won’t be enough t o stop t he rot this year.

Morgan Stanley predicts ad revenues will be down 3.2 per cent for the first nine months of 2019 when ITV reports third-quarter results. Commercials run by the Government amounted to £28 million in the first six months of the year, making it the tenth biggest advertiser.

While pre-Brexit advertising gave a welcome boost last month, a suspension of policy-related Government advertising in the run- up to the Election is exactly what ITV did not need.

WHAT is good news for Dignity isn’t necessarily good news for the rest of us.

The rate of deaths – a pretty crucial metric for a funerals operator – has been falling this year.

But now that trend appears to be shifting.

Peel Hunt’s analysts say the death rate ‘normalised’ in the third quarter and was up 1 per cent, which will mean it is down around 4 per cent so far this year.

That was reflected in the company’s financial performance in the first half of the year, which suffered somewhat as a result. A pick-up announced in tomorrow’s update could bring some life back to the ailing share price.