Flying Brands in talks as trading deteriorates

23rd Sep 2011 08:06

Mail order gardening, gift and audiobook retailer Flying Brands is in negotiations to sell property assets to avoid breaching its banking covenants following a sharp deterioration in trading."We are nearing the end of our Autumn selling season in Gardening Direct and the performance of the business has been significantly below management expectations," the company said. "Trading across our other businesses has also been below expectations."The company continued: "We are currently reviewing our forecasts for the rest of the year in light of this but it is already clear that, in the absence of any further action, we would breach our banking covenants when these come to be tested in the second half of October. "This would result in the need to further renegotiate our banking arrangements or seek a waiver from the bank."Flying Brands said that negotiations over the sale of non-core property assets are at a very advanced stage and that it hopes to make a further announcement very shortly.---RG