Ideal Shopping cuts jobs in trade plunge

TV shopping channels group Ideal Shopping today said that trading had fallen off a cliff in November and it expects losses for the year to be far greater than expected.

It is taking immediate action by cutting 70 full-time jobs, 15% of its permanent workforce, and axeing "the majority of temporary staff" by the end of this year.

Ideal, which runs the Ideal World, Ideal Vitality and Create and Craft channels on Sky, said "revenues for November were substantially below expectations" although the first nine days of December had been broadly in line with last year. For those six weeks, however, sales were 17% down on a year ago. That means losses for the year will come in around £4 million rather than the £700,000 losses analysts had been forecasting.

That is before one-off charges including £400,000 of redundancies, £800,000 of stock provisions, £900,000 of exceptional costs and £600,000 on deposit with defunct Icelandic bank Kaupthing.

Chief executive Mike Hancox has brought in Ian Jebson from Charles Tyrwhitt, the shirts direct seller, as finance director.