UK homewares retailer Dunelm posts 12% Christmas sales rise

LONDON (Reuters) - Homewares retailer Dunelm Group performed strongly in the run-up to Christmas - its second quarter - with sales rising 11.8% despite COVID restrictions, but said without clarity on when it could reopen stores the outlook was uncertain.

The British company said it expected pretax profit for its first half to come in about 112 million pounds ($153 million), up from 83.6 million pounds a year earlier, but it was unable to provide meaningful guidance for the second half.

All 174 of its stores are currently closed to customers, it said, with all but five operating click and collect services. Home delivery services were operating as normal.

At that level of operation it said it would make a modest weekly loss, given its fixed costs base and decision not to claim government support for retaining workers.

Shares in Dunelm were trading down 5.6% at 12.13 pounds in early deals.

($1 = 0.7321 pounds)

(Reporting by Paul Sandle, editing by Estelle Shirbon)