Jacques Vert's sales slide

LONDON (Reuters) - Womenswear retailer Jacques Vert (JQV.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said trade had continued to deteriorate in the last 10 weeks and it expects no improvement for the rest of the financial year, sending its shares to a two-month low.

The company, which retails the Windsmoor, Planet and Precis brands as well as Jacques Vert, said like-for-like sales had fallen 5.9 percent since April 26, continuing the poor trading performance seen since the start of the summer season in March.

"We expect the remainder of the financial year will continue to be characterised by the difficult trading conditions," chief executive Paul Allen said in the results statement on Tuesday.

Shares in the company, which have lost 55 percent of their value in the past 12 months, dipped a further 5 percent to 10 pence at 10:30 a.m. on the bleaker outlook, despite it posting full-year results at the top end of analysts' expectations.

Freddie George at Seymour Pierce, who has a 'buy' recommendation on the stock, said like-for-like sales growth of 0.5 percent in 52 weeks to April 26 indicated the company had significantly outperformed its peers.

"This was a good result considering the difficult trading environment," he said in a note.

Underlying pretax profit before exceptionals came in at 4.7 million pounds, down from 5.7 million in the previous year, but above the 4.0-4.5 million pound range previously flagged by the company.

Pretax profit was 4.3 million pounds against 19.9 million pounds last year when it had 14.7 million pounds of exceptional gains.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Rory Channing)