ASOS says warehouse fire may have damaged £6.3m worth of stock

A fire that broke out at ASOS's distribution centre outside Berlin in the early hours of Tuesday morning may have damaged around £6.3m worth of stock.

A full evacuation was conducted, with no injuries to staff and the fire was contained to one of the company's four chambers in the first phase of the development at the new Eurohub 2 distribution centre. ASOS said contingency plans were executed successfully with customer orders currently being fulfilled via its Barnsley warehouse.

The business held around 7m units of stock at the facility. ASOS said there were around 2m units of stock in the affected chamber with a cost value of approximately £25m, around 25% of which could be compromised by fire and water damage. However, ASOS said it is fully insured for loss of stock and any subsequent business interruption.

It added that none of the technology, automation or structure of the building has been affected and the clean-up process is underway. The other three chambers of the site will be operational again later on Tuesday.

This is not the first time ASOS has been hit by a fire. In 2014, its main UK distribution centre in Barnsley caught fire, costing the company £30m in damage. Meanwhile, in 2005, its only warehouse was badly damaged by an explosion and fire at the Buncefield oil deport near Hemel Hempstead.

Atif Latif, director of trading at Guardian Stockbrokers, said: "We await more updates to see if this will affect distribution or delay any of the orders. We are yet to quantify the real stock level of the loss taking into account the potential for smoke/sprinkler damage to other goods."

At 1147 BST, the shares were down 0.6% to 6,118p.