Superdry's chief product officer Brigitte Danielmeyer steps down

Fashion retailer Superdry said on Tuesday that Brigitte Danielmeyer has decided to leave her role as chief product officer for personal reasons, following a period of compassionate leave before Christmas.

A search for her replacement is already underway and the company will provide further updates in due course.

Superdry said "strong" progress continues to be made in the product innovation and diversification programme, as outlined in its interim results on 12 December.

Shares in the retailer crashed at the interims in December after it warned on profit again, pinning the blame on the weather as it posted a 49% slump in underlying pre-tax profit for the 26 weeks to 27 October and said underlying profit before tax for the year would be between £55m to £70m, compared to consensus expectations of £84m.

The group said at the time that with warm weather continuing through November and into December, its reliance on cold weather products and a lack of innovation in some of its core categories meant sales remained under pressure despite a strong Black Friday week.

This dented profit by around £11m in November and the group said it expected a potentially similar profit impact in December if trading conditions didn't improve.

At 1315 GMT, the shares were up 4.3% to 524p.