Chief insists SuperGroup still healthy

SuperGroup, the company behind the Superdry fashion label, insisted the appeal of its brand was not on the wane, even though sales growth slowed for the fourth quarter in a row.

By The Newsroom

Published 11th May 2012, 07:00 BST

“I’m fully confident the brand is strong, healthy and alive,” chief executive Julian Dunkerton said.

“You have to remember we have grown by 675 per cent in four years and we are now building up the structure to assist us going forward.”

Last month SuperGroup lost over a third of its market value after its third profit warning in a year.

That setback followed stock availability issues in spring 2011 and the botched implementation of a warehouse IT system upgrade last autumn that left stores short of stock. The litany of mistakes has led some analysts to label SuperGroup shares uninvestable, and with 63 per cent of its equity held by management and directors some have raised the possibility of the firm returning to private hands through a management buyout or sale to private equity. But Mr Dunkerton dismissed such a scenario.