Pittards warns of hit from Ethiopia disruption, lower leather demand

21st Dec 2016 08:41

(ShareCast News) - Leather and luxury leather goods maker Pittards has warned that its full year results are likely to be lower due to lower demand in recent months and disruption to its Ethiopian manufacturing operations from the violent social unrest in the country. Pittards said second-half revenues would be hit as its tannery in East Shewa lost some production and has not yet seen a recovery to pre-disruption levels, though the company said it had mitigated some of the effect by undertaking more production in UK. It added that "prolonged depressed demand" for leather has resulted in disappointing sales volumes in the last few months of the year.Together, the overall performance for the full calendar year is likely to be lower than management's expectations at the time of the half year results in September."The new management team is now in place and further progress has been made in the second half to simplify the group to better position it for growth," the company said.Shares in Pittards were down 14% to 76p by 0830 GMT on Wednesday.