Hotel Chocolat PLC saw its shares slump 8.57% to 160.00p in Thursday’s early deal after the chocolate brand warned that sales will miss market forecasts for the year to 23 April 2023.
The company said it now expects underlying pre-tax profit to break even, after a transitional year during which the company focused on re-shaping the business.
Although the retail like-for-like sales momentum of the first six months strengthened in the second half, Easter sales fell short of expectations due to range gaps, with digital and wholesale channels seeing lower-than-planned revenues as the company focused on "the quality of earnings".
Hotel Chocolat repeated its previous guidance for a return to sales and EBITDA growth, with a target of 20% EBITDA margin, by full-year 2025.
"During this financial year, Hotel Chocolat has taken effective action to overcome the growing pains of rapid growth and scaling £200mln in revenues,” commented co-founder and CEO Angus Thirlwell.
“We are now well set up for the next stage of growth both in the UK and overseas key markets.
"Our manufacturing and distribution is well invested now, with suitable headroom, liberating capital for future revenue growth. We can see more than 50 new locations for a Hotel Chocolat latest format store in the UK over the next few years and our adapted approach to international major markets is making sound progress.”