Guten Tag, it's Paul here, with the placeholder :-)
My daily excuse about not getting around to doing the RBG notes has to continue.
I was busy yesterday afternoon, preoccupied, raising awareness of ZANE, my favourite charity. It's very vivid in my mind, having just spent some time in Zimbabwe.
All I can say is;
"These are the things, these are the things, the things that dreams are made of!" - everyone likes a bit of Human League.
On to today's news...
QUIZ (LON:QUIZ)
Share price: 14.75p (down 54% today, at 11:44)
No. shares: 124.2m
Market cap: £18.3m
Trading update (profit warning)
QUIZ, the omni-channel fashion brand, announces an update on trading during the period between 1 January 2019 to 28 February 2019 ("the Period") and its expectations for the financial year ended 31 March 2019 ("FY 2019").
Yet another disappointing update from this online & physical clothing retailer. It's one of these shares that seems to be on permanent ratchet downwards, with each profit warning smashing up the share price further. There was a nice rebound here, for traders, when it last bottomed out at c.20p, then (temporarily) bouncing to a peak of about 36p. Here we are today at just under 15p, which would have been unthinkable not long ago. Is it value now? Probably yes, but I'll crunch the numbers first.
During the Period, the uncertain consumer spending backdrop has remained challenging for QUIZ. As a result, the Group has recorded a significant shortfall in sales compared to the Board's prior expectations. Furthermore, there has been a requirement to apply higher than anticipated discounts to clear excess stock.
This sounds like management are in denial. When sales fall significantly below forecast, and they have to discount to clear stock, it means they got the fashions wrong. Simple as that. The first step to fixing that problem, is to admit it, which QUIZ doesn't seem to have done.
Online sales are up 16.2% - not bad
Physical stores (and concessions, which are mainly in Debenhams stores) are down a thumping 11.1%. Combine that with lower gross margins (to clear dud stock), and the fixed cost base of physical stores, and this will have a painful geared impact on the bottom line.
Previous guidance was as follows;
The…
