Burberry profit up 14%; raises interim dividend

Burberry PLC reported a 14% rise in first-half profit and raised its interim dividend by 5%, despite flat revenue.

The British luxury house said pretax profit for the first six months of the year came in at GBP119.5 million ($181.8 million), compared with GBP104.5 million in the same period last year, which was hurt by one-time costs.

The company reported adjusted earnings a share of 26 pence, compared with 25 pence in the same period last year, beating analysts' expectations of 23 pence, according to a poll by data provider FactSet.

It said it would pay an interim dividend of 10.2 pence a share.

Burberry last month reported half-year revenue of GBP1.1 billion, roughly flat with a year earlier. At the time, it reported its same-store sales climbed just 1%, a marked slowdown from the 10% reported for the same period last year. Burberry has blamed traveling Chinese consumers and its geographic mix for the weak results. A weaker euro has made shopping in Europe cheaper for Chinese tourists, but the relatively strong British pound has discouraged tourist spending in Burberry's home market of the U.K., where it has a major presence.

Burberry updated its prior expectations, saying that for fiscal 2016 it expects retail and wholesale profit to see no material benefit from exchange rates, which is a shift from its statement last month that it expects a benefit of about GBP10 million.

The company said that since the start of the third quarter, comparable sales, "although volatile, have improved overall relative to the second quarter."

Source:Marketwatch