Next boss Lord Wolfson wary of more gloom

Next boss Lord Wolfson has forecast more doom and gloom for Britain’s struggling High Streets as he revealed the retailer’s sales dipped in a “difficult” third quarter.

Full-price sales at the chain were down 3.5% in the three months to October 31 while retail sales plunged almost 6%.

Directory sales were flat after a July clearance led to a quiet August and warm weather deterred shoppers in September.

Wolfson said a shift in consumer spending away from clothes and toward leisure activities was not “likely to go away overnight, and voiced concerns about rising inflation.

“If inflation does come through and there will be no productivity gain, there will be a squeeze,” he said

Brexit backer Wolfson reiterated a prediction that prices could rise by up to 5% because of the pound’s weakness but said Next had moved to offset that by developing new manufacturing bases in low-cost places like Cambodia and Burma.

“If we’d have done nothing, the price increases could have been 15% or 20%,” the Conservative peer added.

Next narrowed its full-year sales guidance to between minus 1.75% and plus 1.25% but the mid-point of the new range was slightly lower than earlier forecasts. It kept its full-year profit forecast at £805 million.