Philip Green's Arcadia profit dented by BHS losses

LONDON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Arcadia, the retail group owned by the family of billionaire Philip Green, posted a 3 percent fall in annual profit, with strong performances from the Dorothy Perkins and Wallis brands offset by more losses at department store BHS.

The group, which also owns the Topshop, Topman, Burton, Miss Selfridge and Evans brands, said on Tuesday it made a profit before tax and one-off items of 143.1 million pounds ($224.5 million) in the year ended Aug. 30, down from 148.1 million in 2012-13, on total sales up 1 percent to 2.71 billion pounds.

Echoing other British retailers, Green said that in the first 10 weeks of Arcadia's 2014-15 year sales at stores open over a year, including VAT sales tax, were down 1.2 percent, affected by unseasonably mild and wet weather.

The group generated 316.8 million pounds of cash during 2013-14 and ended the year with net cash of 205.1 million.

But for the ninth year running Green did not pay a dividend. In 2005 he geared up the business to pay his Monaco-resident wife Christina, the ultimate owner of Arcadia, a 1.2 billion pound dividend.

Losses at BHS widened to 21.0 million pounds in 2013-14 from 19.3 million the year before.

Green, who bought BHS for 200 million pounds in 2000, said turning round that business remained challenging, though a trial of three food stores within BHS had "traded favourably" so far.

The tycoon purchased the rest of Arcadia for 850 million pounds in 2002 and a decade ago he failed in a second attempt to buy Marks & Spencer (Other OTC: MAKSF - news) , Britain's biggest clothing retailer by sales value.

In 2012 he sold a 25 percent stake in Topshop/Topman to U.S. private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners for 350 million pounds.

(1 US dollar = 0.6375 British pound) (Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Mark Potter)