Cold snap boosts high street fashion retailers

The cold snap has boosted sales of UK high-street retailers after a slump during the warm weeks of September.

Investors in the retail sector will breathe a sigh of relief as trading statements this week show a strong take-up for autumn and winter ranges.

Arcadia, the sprawling fashion retailer recently taken over by the entrepreneur Philip Green, is believed to have enjoyed one of the sharpest rises in sales. The company was due to report results this week and City analysts believe they would have been upgrading their profit forecasts for the coming year if Arcadia had remained a public company.

Arcadia, whose brands include Burton Menswear, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, has been seeing underlying sales growth in the high single digits, compared with management expectations of 3 to 4 per cent. The fashion chains such as Top Shop are believed to have been doing particularly well.

"It looks like Philip Green has done it again and bought at the right time," said one analyst, who suggested that the company might now make profits of £125m in the year to August 2003, compared with previous forecasts of around £110m.

Mr Green made encouraging comments about trading at Bhs at an in-store party last week and predicted the high street was going to have a good Christmas.

Increasing interest in fashion has brought customers back to the high street at the expense of out-of-town sole location stores such as Matalan, which reports results this week.

Evidence of improving retail fortunes were seen last week with strong figures from John Lewis Partnership. Its department stores showed sales growth of 9.8 per cent in the week to 12 October. There were also strong figures from the GUS-owned Argos.

Debenhams, the department store retailer, reports full-year results this week, and the management of JJB Sports will visit the City to present their recent results, which were overshadowed by the death of its chief executive, Duncan Sharpe.