BHS suffers 34% fall in profits

BHS has been hit by the drop off in consumer spending

BHS, the department store group owned by retail tycoon Philip Green, has reported a 34% fall in annual profits.

For the year to the end of March, pre-tax profits at BHS were down 34% to £32.6m from £49.4m 12 months earlier.

Like-for-like sales, which strip out the impact of any new store openings during the year, declined by 3%.

Mr Green, who also owns Top Shop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins, said the results were "a solid performance in an exceptionally challenging market".

Total sales at BHS were down 1.4% to £860m.

'Not a disaster'

"People have still got jobs," Mr Green told the BBC's Today programme.

"Yes there's going to be some shakeout...Yes the marketplace is tough, yes it's very, very competitive, yes there are concerns," he said.

"But underlying business is not going to disappear, it's not a disaster."

Last Thursday, rival Marks & Spencer reported its worst quarterly sales performance for more than three years as retailers begin to suffer from the economic slowdown.