It’s been tough last few months for the parent company of Ann Taylor and Loft!
The American fashion retailer Ascena Retail Group, which filed for bankruptcy on 23 July 2020, is out with its Q3 results and predictably it’s not a good one.
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The net sales in Q3 have slumped – and slumped by a big 44.8 per cent Y-o-Y to touch US $ 601.2 million. Q3 in 2019 had seen the firm generate US $ 1.1 billion.
The gross margin too fell from US $ 627.3 million in last year’s third quarter to US $ 185.8 million this quarter. The net loss this quarter was US $ 643.5 million, while it was US $ 237.9 million in the same period in 2019.
As far net sales of its brands are concerned, Ann Taylor witnessed a huge decline of 45.9 per cent in Q3, while plus brands too slumped by 36.7 per cent.
In this regard, Ascena said that it writes down Ann Taylor for the second successive quarter – this includes good impairment charge of US $ 15 million at Ann Taylor and US $ 70.5 million at Loft.
Meanwhile, Ascena is also writing down the brand value of the Ann Taylor trade name to US $ 17.7 million.
The worries for the retailer started much before the pandemic, when it had to liquidate all 500+ stores of Dressbarn in 2019 with this year also seeing it sell Catherine’s plus size banner to e-commerce plus-size banner City Chic.
The pandemic crisis seems to be final blow for the fashion retailer, which generates revenue of US $ 5.493 billion.
