The encyclopedia · Finance & Accounting · Strategic decision · 2022–2025

Burberry lost £75M in a year — the bill for leaving its trench coat behind

FY2025 brought Burberry a £75M net loss, an 88% profit collapse and up to 1,700 job cuts — the bill for years of chasing fashion over signature product.

Burberry · 2025-05-14

What happened

On 14 May 2025 Burberry published preliminary results for the 52 weeks to 29 March 2025 that marked the low point of its modern decline. Revenue fell 17% to £2.46 billion, from £2.97 billion the year before. Adjusted operating profit collapsed 88% to £26 million, from £418 million in FY2024; on a reported basis the operating result was a £3 million loss and the net loss was £75 million. Comparable retail sales fell 12% over the year — a 20% decline in the first half easing to 5% in the second — and no dividend was proposed.

The response was a restructuring paid for largely by the workforce: up to 1,700 job cuts worldwide over the following two years, close to a fifth of a global headcount of around 9,300. Total restructuring costs were estimated at £80 million, of which £29 million was charged in FY2025, with a further £60 million of annual savings targeted by 2027.

The turnaround is run by Joshua Schulman, who became CEO in July 2024 and in November launched the Burberry Forward reset: a return to 'Timeless British Luxury', with the assortment refocused on signature categories — outerwear and scarves — improved storytelling and rebalanced prices. The decline had been global: for the full year, Asia Pacific fell 16% at constant rates, EMEIA fell 16% and the Americas fell 13%.

The shape of the failure is in the reset itself. Burberry had spent the preceding years pursuing fashion credibility away from its signature categories, and when luxury demand cooled there was no franchise product to absorb the shock — which is why the recovery plan is, literally, a return to the trench coat and the scarf.

Why it happened

Revenue fell 17% in a year because the brand had drifted from its signature categories — the reset's first move was to refocus on trench coats and scarves, an admission of what had been given away
An 88% profit collapse shows a cost base built for the boom: when the sales fell, the margin fell with them, and the group's first net loss in years was the arithmetic, not an accident
Every region declined at once — Asia Pacific, EMEIA, the Americas — which means the problem was the brand rather than any single market
The turnaround is financed by the workforce: up to 1,700 cuts and £80 million of restructuring costs to shrink the business back to the level its sales can carry

What it cost£75M net loss; up to 1,700 jobs cutcostly

The lesson

A heritage brand rents its franchise from its own history. Spend the boom chasing someone else's customer and the bill arrives in the downturn — paid in losses, cuts and a return to basics.

Aftermath

In FY2026 the shrinkage became visible: Burberry closed 21 stores and opened nine, revenue fell a further 2% and management guided that the following year would be 'broadly stable'. Schulman describes the group as in the early stages of its turnaround and says he is more optimistic than ever that Burberry's best days are ahead. The £60 million of savings by 2027 and the refocus on outerwear and scarves are the plan; the open question is whether a house that spent three years teaching its customers to look elsewhere can win them back with the trench coat it always owned.

Sources

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Burberry lost £75M in a year — the bill for leaving its trench coat behind

What happened

Why it happened

The lesson

Aftermath

Sources

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