Burberry has put the brakes on plans for a new factory in Leeds, as it considers the impact of the UK’s decision to exit the EU, according to the luxury brand’s chairman.

Speaking at Burberry’s annual shareholder meeting in Park Lane, London, John Peace said the company was reviewing the delivery time for the designs of its planned £50m manufacturing and weaving facility, as it looked at the “economic consequences of what has happened”.

He said the factory was still going ahead but the speed of investment might be slowed depending how “events unfold in the next few weeks”. Burberry had planned to move all 800 manufacturing staff currently based in two separate sites in Castleford and Keighley to Leeds by 2018. Work on the new facility, named Project Artisan, is due to start next year.

Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative and chief executive officer, told shareholders at the meeting that the project was currently “on track” and remained a very important part of the group’s strategy.

But Bailey’s position is now changing. Earlier this week, Burberry said Bailey would next year relinquish his title of chief executive to Marco Gobbetti, currently the boss of French minimalist brand Céline. The Yorkshireman will work alongside his now colleague retaining his role as chief creative officer and adding the title of president.

At the annual meeting, Peace defended the group’s decision to appointment a chief executive two years after he added the job to Bailey’s creative role.

Bailey and Gobbetti will be on similar pay deals and will run the business together in a similar arrangement to the set-up Bailey enjoyed with former Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts who left to go to Apple in 2014.



Peace suggested he had handed a joint role to Bailey when Ahrendts left to ensure the designer did not walk away too – a move shareholders would not have forgiven. “Shareholders recognise how important Christopher is to Burberry and have huge regard for what he has done over the years. It was very important that we retained Christopher for the future,” he said.

Peace said Bailey had been an “amazing CEO”, achieving record earnings and had reacted quickly to “dramatic headwinds affecting the luxury sector” led by a slowdown in spending by Chinese tourists.

But he said Bailey now needed to focus on the things he was best at including creative design, online communication and marketing. Bailey will not take a pay cut as Peace said he had not been handed a rise in salary when he took on the chief executive role.