Sept 30 (Reuters) - British fashion retailer Alexon Group Plc (AXN.L) posted a fall in first-half adjusted pretax profit mainly due to poor consumer confidence and lower demand, and scrapped its interim dividend to conserve cash amid a tough retail environment.

Bay Clothing Spring 2009, one of the Alexon brands

The company, which trades as Eastex, Dash, Minuet, Ann Harvey, Kaliko and Alex & Co, said on Wednesday 30 September trading since the half year was challenging mainly as a result of its planned strategy to have less sale activity.

For the 26 weeks ended Aug. 1, pretax profit before exceptional items fell to 0.9 million pounds ($1.4 million) from 6.9 million pounds last year.

Alexon also posted a first-half pretax loss of 8.1 million pounds, including exceptional items of 9.0 million pounds.

Revenue decreased 11 percent to 77.7 million pounds, while like-for-like sales were down 12.6 percent.

Shares of Alexon, which put its Bay Trading unit into administration in April, closed at 47 pence on Tuesday 29 September on the London Stock Exchange. ($1=.6241 Pound) (Reporting by Tresa Sherin Morera in Bangalore; Editing by Vinu Pilakkott)