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Opening Pandora’s box: jewellery maker warns of weaker FY18 sales and 400 jobs cut

By Angela Gonzalez-Rodriguez

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New York - Danish jewellery maker Pandora opened its namesake’s box last week when it warned that full-year sales will be lower than expected, tanking the stock to historical lows.

The Danish company expects sales will increase by between 4-7 percent this year, compared with the 7-10 percent it previously projected, reported the BBC in its online news edition. It warned in a communication issued last Monday that its profit margin on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation will be lower than anticipated at about 32 percent, down from a prediction of 35 percent.

Søren Hansen, senior analyst at Danish bank Sydbank, commented the updated company’s profit outlook calling this a "large" profit warning, suggesting that - with various factors accounted for - "underlying sales are actually declining".

Similarly, Zuzanna Pusz, an analyst at Berenberg, said in a note that Pandora’s revised profit warning will "put the continuity of the management team and the board in question" since it's so soon after the new targets,. The new guidance is about 8 percent below market expectations but "given the uncertainty this creates around the mid-term financial targets announced earlier this year we could see an even more negative share price reaction," she said.

As revealed during the company’s last trading update, sales have dipped in its circa 600 stores in the UK and the US. The world's largest jeweller by production volume has seen a decreasing number of visits to its stores, especially those located in shopping centres. This decline has been particularly acute in the U.S., the largest market for the company.

On a related note, the company advanced in a statement that it intends to cut 397 of its employees, over half of them belonging to its Thai workforce – Pandora manufactures its jewellery across two factories in Bangkok and Lamphun, where it employs roughly 13,000 people.

On the back of the news, Pandora’s shares were trading down by almost 20 percent in Copenhagen, or as reported by Reuters, hitting the stock’s lowest level since May 2014.

Pandora