Profits slide at House of Fraser

House of Fraser is close to issuing a profit warning after a sales slump, according to retail insiders. Like for like sales are believed to have been down by double - digit or high single-digit amounts for five of the past seven weeks. A banker close to the group said "How they have not had to issue a profit warning I don't know" A spokesman for HoF said "The company understands its obligations. It has got a trading statement scheduled for January 12. If it needs to do a trading statement earlier it will" Other retailers such as M&S and John Lewis are seeing positive sales growth.