Luxury fashion house Burberry rises as much as 10% after issuing upbeat full-year outlook
UK luxury fashion group Burberry rose by as much as 10% on Friday, on track for its largest daily gain in a year, after issuing an upbeat assessment of its full-year earnings that topped analysts expectations.
Burberry shares were last up 6.2% on the day around £21.10 ($29.18), having risen to a session peak of £21.85 earlier in the day, close to their highest since mid-January 2020.
The company said in a statement revenue and adjusted operating profit for its financial 2021 year are expected to beat expectations due to a strong and continued rebound since December. It said it will issue an unscheduled trading update on March 27, ahead of its full-year results in May.
"Burberry said sales had performed well since December and that it now expects both revenue and adjusted operating profit to be ahead of expectations," CityIndex analyst Joshua Warner said.
"Still, the improvement in the final quarter won't be enough to offset the weakness earlier in the year and annual revenue will be down 10% to 11%," he said.
Burberry stock had been slowly rising in recent months and seemed to be recovering from the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The retail sector has been hit especially hard by the virus and subsequent lockdown measures, with many retailers suffering huge losses that have resulted in store closures and layoffs. This includes Burberry, which announced a 5% staff cut in July 2020.
Burberry shares were the top performers on London's FTSE 100 index, which was down 0.1% on the day, after data showed another sharp contraction in UK GDP in January.