SuperGroup fashions a high-speed sales spurt

SuperGroup, the Superdry fashion company, enjoyed its fastest quarter of growth for more than a year in the three months to July as better design and better products fed through to faster sales.

The chief executive Julian Dunkerton, who could face shareholder anger at next week's annual meeting over a £350,000 golden hello given to the chief operating officer Susanne Given, said the figures "totally vindicated" it. He added: "Susanne was the perfect fit for our business and you can see from both our retail sales in the summer and wholesale deliveries for our autumn and winter range that both the brand and the products are getting better."

Total sales were up 25.7 per cent at £75m in the quarter with retail sales up 17.6 per cent and wholesale orders up 26 per cent. As the shares jumped 68p to 1,227p, their highest for two years, analysts at Canaccord said the sales rise "bodes well" for the key Christmas period.