David Adams, the chairman of Jessops, looks set to be the only executive director running the troubled camera retailer over Christmas after Chris Langley, the chief executive, quit yesterday.

Mr Langley, who joined the company in 2005 and was promoted to chief executive in May last year, resigned “to pursue other business interests” only two weeks after Ian Harris, the finance director, left by mutual agreement with an estimated £200,000 payoff. The chief executive will not receive a payoff and will remain with the company until the end of November to help to plan for the Christmas trading period.

His departure is another blow to the company, whose share price has fallen 94 per cent in the past year as profits have collapsed. However, the shares rose by 3½, or 40 per cent, to 12¼p yesterday as the company said that it expected losses this year would remain within earlier guidance.

Jessops said that total sales were down 7.5 per cent in the 51 weeks to September 23 and down 8.7 per cent if the impact of store closures and openings was stripped out. The impact was mitigated by an improvement in gross margin resulting from improved availability of merchandise and savings generated by a cost reduction programme.

Mr Adams said: “We have done what we said we would do. Last year was not pretty and we are clearly disappointed by it. It was very traumatic but it is now out of the way.”

Richard Ratner, an analyst for Seymour Pierce, said that the results were in line with expectations. He believed that Jessops’ bankers would give Mr Adams more time to turn the company around. “David is an excellent fellow but I’m not quite sure where the company goes long term,” he said.

The company said that exceptional costs would be “marginally higher” than previously indicated as it spent more on clearing stock than expected.

Yesterday Jessops confirmed that it had finalised new banking facilities of £66.5 million with HSBC, which will support the business until the end of next year.

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