P.M. BRIEFING : Filofax Hit by Slump in Demand

Filofax, the British company that makes personal organizers for yuppies, has been hit hard by a shopping slump and fading demand from business executives.

The paperback-sized binder, patented over 50 years ago by a shorthand typist, won commercial success in the 1980s as a vital accessory for “yuppies”--young upwardly mobile professionals. At the height of its success, Filofax Group PLC hailed the files, sold in more than 30 countries, as “one of the great marketing phenomena of the 1980s.”

But poor retail sales in Britain, the firm’s biggest market, and a flood of cheaper imitations have wiped out profits. Filofax Chairman David Collischon said today that the company expects to record a loss for the second half of 1989.

Collischon said the company is partly a victim of its own success as the executive market that helped cause the Filofax boom is now well supplied with the built-to-last binders.