Bank holiday blues for Topps Tiles

After showing signs of stopping the rot in the first quarter of its fiscal year flooring specialist Topps Tiles would have kept the improvement going in the second quarter, but for the timing of the New Year bank holiday.

LFL sales in the six months to the end of March are expected to be down around 4.5% from a year earlier when the final numbers are in, a deterioration from the position at the end of the first quarter when LFL sales were down 4.2% year-on-year.

Topps did the maths for us, saying second quarter revenues are expected to be down by around 4.8% on a LFL basis from a year earlier. Broker Peel Hunt had expected the LFL sales position in the second quarter to be in line with the first quarter.

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Due to the timing of the New Year Bank Holiday the second quarter contained one less trading day in 2012 and after adjusting for this the underlying like-for-like performance is a decline of around 4.0%.

In the corresponding six month period a year earlier Topps had seen LFL sales growth of 1.8%, so it is going up against relatively tough comparatives, but the board confessed trading remains tough, albeit broadly in line with its expectations.

That seemed to be enough for the market to mark down the shares to 36.5p at one stage in the morning session, down 3.25p on the previous night's close.

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