Carpetright Plc said chief executive Darren Shapland quit amid a further deterioration in sales that will cause profit to be "significantly below" the UK retailer's projections, sending the shares down 15 per cent.

Mr Shapland, who returned to the business in May last year to succeed founder Philip Harris, stepped down after informing the company he couldn't commit to staying until the end of his five-year contract, Mr Harris said on a conference call yesterday.

The departure leaves Mr Harris (71) back in charge of the company he started in 1988 with a store in London’s East End.

Mr Shapland's exit is "highly surprising," though "appears to be unrelated to the deterioration in trading", John Stevenson, an analyst at Peel Hunt in London, said in a note. – (Bloomberg)