Vögele to close shops

In an interview with weekly SonntagsZeitung, chief executive Daniel Reinhard of Charles Vögele said that the clothing retailer plans to divest or close some shops in Germany as well as the Netherlands.

The boss of the Swiss company said that in Holland, 10 shops are affected this year, in Germany it's 15 to 18 shops in the longer term.

Last week Vögele, which has 780 shops across Europe, posted a 2002 net profit of 15.9 million Swiss francs (GBP 7.4m) versus 800,000 Swiss francs in the year-ago period.