Moss Bros heads for red after sales sag

Moss Bros today admitted sales have collapsed, and it will plunge deeply into the red this year - just days after rag trade billionaire Sir Philip Green turned a £1 million profit trading shares in the company.

A profit warning from the struggling suits seller and hirer indicated something near a double-digit crash in like-for-like sales in recent weeks.

From flat sales through August and September, Moss Bros is now saying sales from the end of July to the end of the November are down by 5.2%.

That, it said, will "have a materially adverse impact" on a trading performance in which it racked up losses of £2.1 million in the first half of the year after a 2007 loss of £1.3 million.

Green said last week that he sold the 28% stake he had recently acquired in Moss Bros from the stricken Icelandic group Baugur for £6.7 million to suitmaker Simon Berwin for £7.7 million, or almost 29p a share.

Shares in Moss Bros were today trading down 2¼p at 16½p.