Mulberry Group Plc’ share price, posts a 46% annual profit decline, plans a series of lower-priced products

The U.K. luxury bag manufacturer Mulberry Group Plc, which is currently operating without a Chief Executive Officer and Creative Director, made an official statement today, posting a second consecutive annual earnings decline due to decreasing third-party sales both at its home market and in the Asian market.

Ms. Helen Norris, who is one of the analysts at Barclays said in a note to customers, which was cited by Bloomberg: “Mulberry enters the new year in a state of transition.” In addition, Ms. Norris reduced her projection for the companys 2015 pretax profit from 11 million pounds to 10 million pounds, explaining that the first half “looks especially tough”.

According to Mulberry Group Plc statement, the companys annual pretax profit for the year ended March declined by 46% from 26 million pounds a year ago to 14 million pounds (23.5 million dollars). The wholesale revenue fell by 6%. As reported by Bloomberg, the company said: “The outlook for the current financial year remains challenging.”

The company revealed that it intends to present a range of lower-priced products after recently introducing cheaper line of bags, which turned out to be popular. This comes at a moment when the company lacks a Chief Executive Officer, as its former CEO Mr. Bruno Guillon left Mulberry Group in March after the failure of his plan of raising prices at the time when the company is trying to expand its reach.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Godfrey Davis, who is the Interim Executive Chairman of the company said in the statement: “We have listened to our customers and are introducing attractive new products in the key £500-£800 price range. As a first step we introduced the new Tessie collection two weeks ago which is proving popular.”

Mulberry Group Plc was adding 0.28% to trade at 710.00 pence per share by 11:26 GMT, marking a one year change of -25.14%. According to the information published on the Financial Times, the 3 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Mulberry Group Plc have a median target of 700.00, with a high estimate of 760.00 and a low estimate of 600.00. The median estimate represents a -1.13% decrease from the last price of 708.00.