Supergroup posts FY profit rise early after employee theft

Supergroup has been forced to release some highlights from its preliminary results for the year to 29 April as an external party may have had sight of a draft of the numbers following a random theft from an employee.

The Superdry owner, which is due to release the full results on Monday, said underlying pre-tax profit for the 52 weeks was up 18.4% to £87m on revenue of £752m, up 27.4% on the previous year. Meanwhile, like-for-like sales rose 12.7%.

On a 2016 53-week basis, pre-tax profit was up 53.1% to £84.8m. Underlying operating margin fell to 11.9% from 12.6% and underlying gross margin was down 130 basis points to 60.2%, reflecting the strength of the Wholesale channel mix.

The added that FY18 underlying pre-tax profit is anticipated to be in line with market expectations.

At 1540 BST, the shares were up 0.2% to 1,550p.