A flood of good news for Monsoon

Fashion chain Monsoon has swept aside the high street gloom to record a sharp rise in profits, triggering a bumper pay-out for its founder.

The group, which also runs the Accessorize business, saw pre-tax profits rise to 98.2 million in the year to late August, up from 27.9m a year earlier, according to accounts filed with Companies House.

A strong performance from overseas stores, where like-for-like sales grew by 4.8 per cent, helped boost the bottom line. New sites were opened in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Washington during the year.