N. Brown posts 45% growth in H1 profit

N. Brown posts 45% growth in H1 profit

	Published : Wed, 12 Oct 2005 09:05 By : Amy Watts Print this Story

LONDON: Home shopping firm N Brown Group has posted an impressive 45 per cent growth in first half profit, saying sales of clothing for larger ladies helped it to record this gain. The company, which markets its products through websites and catalogues, said it is focusing on hard-to-get items and planned to get into menswear covering a collar size of up to 21 inches and chest size of up to 66 inches.

The Manchester-based company, which targets clients who are old, said its pretax profit stood at 23.5 million pounds in the six months compared with 16.2 million pounds in the corresponding previous year period, while turnover increased by 8.6 per cent to 237.3 million pounds. It intends to pay an interim dividend up 4.6 percent at 1.82p.

The company's chief executive Alan White said the one element of these results that the company is particularly pleased with is the 8 per cent rise in ladies wear sales. It also reported a 15 per cent growth in sales of wide-fitting shoes.

The company's encouraging performance is viewed in relation to the distressing time for the retail sector in the country. It had done a bit of restructuring too. Its House of Sterling door-to-door business has been revamped by selling the worst performing elements of the debt book for 1.75 million pounds to a debt collector and by cutting 140 jobs. Its TV shopping channel Express Shopping, set up as a joint venture with Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell, has also not picked up. It has stopped broadcasting and the company is likely to sell off the assets, which may end up in a loss of 1 million pounds for the company.

The company has total staff strength of 3,000.