Shares in Shoe Zone plunge after profit warning

Value footwear retailer Shoe Zone saw its shares plunge by more than 30 percent after the company announced the resignation of its chief executive and a stark profit warning on Friday.

Shoe Zone, which operates 550 UK stores and has 4,000 employees, saw shares fall as low as 116.6p in early trading on Friday, well below the 160p they were valued at when the company listed in 2014.

The company also revealed that its freehold property portfolio was worth 3.1m pounds less than expected, and will write down the value of its 17 freehold properties to 5.3m pounds, wrote the BBC. It blamed a “tough” property market for the decision.

Shoe Zone said there was an upside to the difficult trading conditions on the High Street. “The pressure on the retail property market has enabled Shoe Zone to achieve an average 23.5 percent fall in rents on renewal and average outstanding lease length of only two years,” Shoe Zone executive chairman Anthony Smith said in a statement.

Image: Shoe Zone, courtesy