N Brown surges as it posts jump in third quarter revenue

Specialist clothing retailer N Brown rocketed on Thursday as it posted a jump in third quarter revenue and said it was on track to meet full year expectations.

In the 18 week period to 2 January 2016, group revenue rose 4.1%, with like-for-like sales also up 4.1% and the online business performing particularly well.

Online penetration increased 5 percentage points year-on-year to 66%, with total online sales up 13%.

Meanwhile, 75% of new customer demand was generated online during the period, which is an increase of 7 percentage points.

It was a slightly different picture for high street stores, however, which saw flat sales on a like-for-like basis year on year.

The company said its ‘power brands’ - JD Williams, Simply Be and Jacamo - all performed well, with double-digit growth in the period.

The Simply Be brand saw strong growth in the US, with year-on-year turnover growth of 20% at constant-currency.

Chief executive officer Angela Spindler said: “We are pleased with our performance in Q3, during which we saw clear evidence of the benefits of the way in which we are transforming the business.

“After the well-documented difficult start to the season for our sector, our more agile approach enabled us to trade the business well and we delivered particularly good results over the cyber weekend and in the weeks that followed. This was driven by our improved product offering, which continues to gain traction with customers, together with our new digital marketing initiatives.”

Shore Capital said: “Overall we concur with management in characterising the trading performance in Q3 as a good one, particularly at the top-line, ‎where there has been some variability in momentum over the last 24-months from the company.”

At 0819 GMT, N Brown shares were up 9% to 306.40p.