FY15 widening losses at French Connection drag the stock to its lowest this year

British fashion group French Connection Group Plc reported a bigger-than-expected full-year loss, which took the company's shares to their lowest close since the beginning of the year.

Consequently, and after having recovered some of their earlier losses the stock fell as much as 11.7 percent on Tuesday, hitting their lowest in more than two months.

Reasons argued by the company for this dip range from disappointing sales of its spring and summer collections to a more competitive than ever British fashion market.

Since French Connection’s shares fell as much as 11 percent to their lowest in more than two months, the retailer has announced it would not recommend a dividend as it planned to preserve cash for its long-running turnaround programme, reports Reuters.

On the back of the financial release, the company’s chairman, Stephen Marks, explained that the company’s full-year performance had been disappointing due to “the very poor first half” but that sales had improved during the second half and into the new financial year.

Operating losses up from 800,000 pounds to 4.7 million pounds in one year

In this vein, French Connection reported underlying operating losses widened to 4.7 million pounds for the year ended January 31, compared to last year’s same period’s 800,000 pounds.

Revenue also fell dropping 8 percent to 164.2 million pounds. Retail revenue from stores around the world, which accounted for more than half of total sales, fell 10.6 percent.

"Customers weren't liking what they were seeing," Neil Williams, French Connection's operations director, told Reuters. "Fundamentally, the poor performance of Spring 15 was all down to the collection."

These figures don´t precisely help, as French Connection has been embarked into a turnaround plan for over three years now.

However, the company keeps trying other improvements, such as changing its in-house team of designers, or adding Lee Williams - currently at online clothing retailer Asos - as finance director, effective April, 4. On another note, the company has shut 13 stores in the last financial year. < /p>

"The turnaround plan wasn't aggressive enough and the product ranges haven't been right," said in this respect Freddie George, analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Analysts at French Connection’s house broker Numis said in the meantime that “French Connection has made a solid start to the new financial year, benefiting from the changes in design and merchandising, and has seen a strong reaction to the new collections and a continuation of the improved second-half trading performance.”