By Elena Vardon
Dr. Martens said that it sees revenue and profit for fiscal 2024 falling as its performance is taking a hit from the challenging consumer environment in the U.S., leading to mixed trading in the second half so far after a weaker first-half.
The British footwear and clothing brand now expects revenue for the year to the end of March to fall by a high single-digit percentage on-year. It had reported 1.0 billion pounds ($1.27 billion) in revenue for fiscal 2023.
The drop is expected to push earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization below the bottom end of consensus’ expected range, with pretax profit seen taking an around GBP5 million pound hit from higher net finance costs, it added.
The London-listed group pointed to market consensus which has Ebitda in the GBP223.7 million to GBP240.0 million range for the year and sees pretax profit coming in between GBP128.7 million and GBP148.0 million.
“Given macro-economic uncertainty, we are withdrawing our previous guidance of high single-digit revenue growth in FY25,” the group said.
For the six months ended Sept. 30, it posted GBP25.8 million pounds in pretax profit compared with GBP57.9 million for the same period a year ago. Investment into IT projects, store space and new openings led to heavier depreciation and amortization costs, it noted.
Revenue slipped to GBP395.8 million from GBP418.6 million, driven by weakness in wholesale on its strategic decision to reduce volumes into EMEA retailers, exit of its China distributor and weaker performance in the U.S., the London-listed group said.
“It is likely, however, that given the challenging backdrop it will take longer to see an improvement in USA results than initially anticipated,” chief Executive Kenny Wilson said.
The board declared an interim dividend of 1.56 pence a share, flat on last year’s.
Write to Elena Vardon at elena.vardon@wsj.com
