Burberry shares take a battering

Aquascutum fails to dig itself out of trench

BURBERRY fell foul of market expectations despite a sales surge of almost a fifth for the trench-coat maker.

The fashion giant’s shares dropped by 5pc after the group said its revenue in the second half of the year increased by 18pc to £1bn, with Britain, France and China showing the greatest demand. In its retail arm, now almost three quarters of the group’s operations, sales rose 23pc to £743m. In London, a large amount of its business came from ‘wealthy travellers’ to the capital from the Middle East, Russia and China, finance director Stacey Cartwright said.

But 90pc of its business is outside of the UK, and Asian sales rose by 34pc to £387m in the six months.

Shares, which have risen by 30pc in the last 12 months, fell 94p to 1492p. THE 160-year-old British fashion house that supplied trench coats to Humphrey Bogart and Margaret Thatcher has collapsed into administration, putting 250 jobs at risk.

Aquascutum, the luxury clothing group owned by Harold Tillman, yesterday called in restructurers from FRP Advisory.

It was bought by Tillman in 2009, but the decision to sell off the rights of its Asian arm to YGM Trading for £13.7m rid the group of one of its key growth areas.

It has 250 UK employees split between its three High Street stores in Westfield, Canary Wharf and Windsor, a handful of larger store concessions and its manufacturing plant in Corby.

Tillman sold his other major retail asset Jaeger on Monday in a move viewed as an attempt to shield the group from Aquascutum’s collapse.