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William Baird gets womenswear wrong

Susie Mesure
Thursday 04 April 2002 00:00 BST
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William Baird yesterday revealed that the retrospective tendencies at its core womenswear division had pushed profits more than two-thirds lower, reviving speculation that the troubled clothing group could fall prey to a takeover bid.

Baird, which has never recovered from Marks & Spencer's 1999 decision to end a 30-year relationship, said trading at its Windsmoor, Planet and Precis Petit womenswear brands would remain tough until at least the autumn. This followed its failure last year to read the trend for less tailored, more feminine fashions, which resulted in a "very difficult" fourth quarter.

Ruth Henderson, who took over as chief executive last August from David Suddens after he lost a legal battle for compensation from M&S, said: "We need to go back to basics and refocus on our core customers. We had a tendency to look back at last year's best sellers rather than at current trends." First-quarter sales are still down on a like-for-like basis, she added.

Ms Henderson said the group was making "slow progress" with its attempt to revive the flagging Lowe Alpine casual wear brand, which is not expected to make a profit until next year. Baird has closed Lowe Alpine's Irish factory and revamped its board.

The group's pre-exceptional, pre-tax profits for the 13 months to 2 February dived by 68 per cent to £4.7m on sales down from £392m to £225m. Baird changed its year-end to reflect its reclassification as a textiles company following its portfolio overhaul to focus on womenswear and casual wear.

It clocked up £16.5m of exceptional items, which included £4.9m to cover the closure of its Irish factory, £4.3m of write-downs relating to M&S and £7.8m for an industrial disease claim dating to its days as a conglomerate in the early 1990s.

The prolonged slump in the group's fortunes is expected to revive bid interest from Alchemy Partners, the venture capitalists that holds nearly 30 per cent of the company. Last January, Alchemy made a number of unsuccessful approaches.

Baird said it had exited the rainwear market after trading fell by 45 per cent at Dannimac. Its shares lost 2p to 50p.

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