Retailer Gap posts near-$1bn loss due to coronavirus

Retailer Gap posts near-$1bn loss due to coronavirus

Clothing retailer Gap has reported a loss close to $1bn due to store closures because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The company was $932m (£740m) in the red for the three months to May, compared with a profit of $227m in the same period last year.

It comes as Gap wrote off the value of the goods it holds by more than a quarter of a billion dollars.

The firm’s shares were down by more than 8% in after-hours trade.

With net sales falling 43% in the period, Gap’s chief executive Sonia Syngal said they continued to reflect “material declines in May as a result of closures” but added that online demand was improving.

Retailers of non-essential goods, especially clothing, have been hit hard by restrictions aimed to help slow the spread of Covid-19.

Shops have been shut across much of the world as retailers were forced to limit their businesses to online operations.

San Francisco-based Gap, which operates almost 2,800 stores in North America, said that more than half of its company-operated stores in the US have now reopened.

BBC