April 22 (Reuters) - British fashion retailer Alexon Group Plc (AXN.L) posted a 79 percent fall in its full-year adjusted pretax profit mainly on lower margins and a poor performance at its Bay Trading brand, and said that it would not pay a final dividend. The company, whose brands also include Dash and Ann Harvey, said its trading since the year end was in line with its expectations for the core Alexon brands, but the performance of Bay Trading remained challenging.

Bay Trading Spring 2009

"We have a clear turnaround plan in place and despite difficult market conditions are confident we will make progress going forward," the company said in a statement.

For the year ended Jan. 31, pretax profit before exceptional items fell sharply to 3.5 million pounds ($5.14 million) from 16.4 million pounds last year. Revenue fell by 4.5 percent to 250.3 million pounds.

Analysts on average had expected Alexon to post a full-year pretax profit before one-off items of 3.8 million pounds on revenue of 240.9 million pounds, according to Reuters Estimates.

The company had 31.2 million pounds of exceptional items, comprising provisions in respect of onerous leases and impairment of goodwill for the period. On Tuesday, the company said it had rejected an unsolicited bid from an unnamed third party.

Alexon shares closed at 33.25 pence on Tuesday on the London Stock Exchange. ($1=.6808 Pound) (Reporting by Tresa Sherin Morera in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)