Asos PLC on Wednesday reported a revenue decline and narrower loss in its first-half, and it announced Dave Murray will be stepping into the chief financial officer role later this month.

Shares in the online-only fashion retailer were up 6.8% to 356.20 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.

Asos reported that revenue in the 26 weeks to March 3 fell 18% to £1.51 billion from £1.84 billion a year earlier.

Its pretax loss, however, narrowed to £270.0 million from £290.9 million.

Cost of sales in the period fell to £903.5 million from £1.18 billion.

Asos hailed ‘disciplined inventory and cost management’ and noted an improvement in its free cash outflow outcome. It reported a free cash outflow of £21.1 million, compared to £258.8 million a year prior.

Chief Executive Jose Calamonte said: ‘At the beginning of this year we explained that FY24 would be a year of continued transformation for Asos as we take the necessary actions to deliver a more profitable and cash generative business. Under our back to fashion strategy, we set out three priorities for the year - to offer the best and most relevant product, to strengthen our relationship with customers and to reduce our cost to serve. We have delivered on each of these in the first half of the year.’

Looking ahead, it reiterated its guidance for a 5% to 15% sales decline for the full-year.

In a separate announcement, Asos said Murray will become CFO from April 29.

Interim CFO Sean Glithero will stick around for a handover period but depart the company thereafter. Glithero has been in the role since May last year.

Asos said Murray has ‘more than two decades’ experience across a range of finance roles in the retail and ecommerce industry’. He has held positions with grocer J Sainsbury PLC and e-commerce firm Amazon.com Inc in the UK.

Most recently, Murray was CFO of MatchesFashion.

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