N Brown full-year profits beat expectations

Specialist womenswear retailer N Brown said on Thursday that it swung to a statutory full-year loss, but adjusted pre-tax profit came in ahead of expectations.

In the year to 2 March 2019, adjusted pre-tax profit ticked up 2.5% to £83.6m, beating consensus expectations of £80m. However, the company said it swung to a statutory pre-tax loss of £57.5m from a profit of £16.2m the year before, while revenue declined 0.8% to £914.4m.

Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation pushed up 7.9% to £128m.

Product revenue was 5.6% lower at £615.8m and financial services revenue was up 10.8% at £298.6m. Revenue at Simply Be grew 4.4% during the year to £131.5m, while Jacamo revenue rose 3.9% to £64m. JD Williams saw revenue drop 2.4% to £159.5m during the year due to the drag from migrated Fifty Plus customers, one of the company's legacy offline brands.

The full-year dividend was slashed by 50.1% to 7.1p a share, after the board took the decision in October to rebase the dividend to a "more sustainable level" from which it will seek to grow as its earnings progress.

N Brown said its transformation to a digital retailer continues, with 80% of product revenue now digital.

For 2020, the company expects product and financial services margin to be flat to 100 basis points lower, while group operating costs are expected to decline between 2.5% and 4.5% and capital expenditure is estimated at between £35m and £40m. Year-end net debt is anticipated to be £440m and £460m, although half-year net debt will be £475m to £500m.

Chief executive Steve Johnson said: "We're pleased to have delivered a solid trading performance for the year, driving a 7.9% increase in adjusted EBITDA, as we continue our transformation into a digital retailer. Encouragingly, we saw digital revenue growth across JD Williams, Simply Be and Jacamo, as we improve our customer offer whilst managing the decline of our legacy offline business.

"We also benefited from improved use of our promotional spend, a strong financial services performance and a drive to ensure we are operating as efficiently as possible across the business."

At 0940 BST, the shares were up 16% to 124p.