Shoe Zone finance chief makes quick exit

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 22, 2021

Value-focused footwear retailer Shoe Zone on Monday announced the unexpected departure of its finance chief.

In a very brief stock exchange filing, the company said “Peter Foot, its Finance Director, has left the business with immediate effect.  The board has started the search for a replacement and a further announcement will be made in due course once an appointment has been made”.

No reason for his exit was given by the firm, but it did say that the board-level change won’t have any impact on its year-end results that are to be announced on March 8.

He only joined last summer, replacing Jonathan Fearn, who quit after the footwear retailer announced a loss of £2.5 million for the first six months of the year.

Foot’s arrival had been hailed as a good move for the company that said he had over 25 years of industry experience having previously been finance and operations director at T&A Footwear Limited. While in that post, he helped boost the firm’s margins and sales and drove through cost savings, all of which are key aims of Shoe Zone.

Back in October, the company had reported on an “incredibly challenging year” with results for the 52 weeks to October 5 showing store trading since reopening in June was down 20% year-on-year while digital trading was up 10%. But the latter couldn’t make up for the shortfall from stores. 

Times are clearly tough fro Shoe Zone and in January it even announced that it was taking a break from social media.