Home shopping group Findel has put two of its brands under review as sales at its home shopping division continued to slide, falling 6 per cent in the 44 weeks to February 6.

Findel said that it has begun reviewing the “ongoing viability” of its loss-making Cotswold Company and Letterbox brands.

Singer Capital Markets analyst Matthew McEachran said: “Were they to exit, we believe cash costs would be minimal and less than£500,000, albeit the scale of intangible non-cash write-downs could be circa£18m.”

Findel’s Kitbag brand continued to perform strongly and now makes up about half of the group’s direct e-commerce business.

Findel assured that bad debt was being managed in line with expectations. However, KBC Peel Hunt analyst John Stevenson commented: “If post-Christmas payments were to become an issue, it is likely that any weakness would not become apparent for some time yet.”

Numis analyst Nick Coulter was more optimistic on possible defaults. “With the disposable income of lower demographic customers little changed since the key autumn shopping weeks, we believe default ratings are broadly tracking last year,” he said.

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