New Look, Burberry and Tod´s lead the trading floors

British retailer New Look is said to be looking for a

financial advisor that help the retailer to refinance its debt. According to sources close to the company, talks have started with top tier banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland.

FTSE index cheered up investors and analysts alike in London, as it was set to close above 6,200 Thursday after 10 days of finishing above 6,100 and having reached yet another 52-week high of 6,265 points.

Meanwhile, a director at Burberry sold over 400,000 pounds-worth of shares in the luxury brand company this week, the firm said on Wednesday. Pascal Perrier, the President of Burberry’s Asia Pacific division, sold 30,000 ordinary shares at 1366.8 pence each on January 22nd, for a total 410,040 pounds. The transaction was registered a week after the group’s third-quarter trading update showed a 9 percent underlying rise in revenues to 613 million pounds.

In the corporate releases, Italian luxury leather accessories maker Tod´s announced preliminary sales for the fiscal year 2012 on Thursday. Consolidated sales were 963.1 million euros, up 7.8 percent from 2011 and sales also improved during the fourth quarter of 2012, reaching 213.2 million euros (+9.6 percent). Ina communication, CEO Diego Della Valle showed his satisfaction content with the company´s performance in this period. “I’m deeply satisfied with the sales results achieved in 2012: our group has further strengthened its position of leading player in the luxury goods industry, despite the challenging environment. We have decided to make our Italian wholesale distribution even more selective, in order to preserve our brands’ exclusivity and product positioning. I’m confident also about the group’s net results for 2012, which I believe will be higher than the outstanding level reached the previous year.” Tod’s also confirmed double-digit growth for 2012, with solid growth across its major markets.