11th Jul 2024 16:46
(Alliance News) - Dr Martens PLC calmed some investor nerves on Thursday after its latest trading statement included no scares.
The boot maker, ahead of its annual general meeting on Thursday, affirmed its financial year will be second-half weighted, "particularly from a profit perspective".
"Trading since the start of this financial year has been in line with expectations and our guidance for FY25 remains unchanged. As always, Q1 is the smallest period of our financial year, representing the end of the spring/summer season," Dr Martens said.
"The upcoming autumn/winter 24 season remains a key focus and detailed trading plans, as discussed in our recent FY24 results, are being implemented. We continue to target positive direct-to-consumer growth in the USA in H2. Work on our cost action plan is ongoing and we will provide a detailed update at our first half results in November."
Shares in the company were up 3.1% to 75.90 pence each in London on Thursday afternoon, though they have slumped 15% year-to-date, having partly recovered from a 29% plunge on April 16. Dr Martens that day had said a worse case scenario would see pretax profit in the year to March 2025 fall to around one-third of the level of the financial year just ended.
AJ Bell analyst Russ Mould commented: "Investors breathed a sigh of relief that life is not getting worse for Dr Martens. After a string of setbacks in the US, there finally seems to be a sense of stability about the business. While the latest trading update didn't contain anything spectacular, the most important thing was that it didn't contain any more bad news.
"Yes, profit is more weighted towards the second-half period but the company had previously communicated that would be the case. Simply maintaining full-year guidance was enough to push the share price higher. It may sell big, stompy boots but baby steps are what Dr Martens needs to achieve in its road to recovery."
By Eric Cunha, Alliance News news editor
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