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Plus-size N Brown retailer finishes the ‘heavy lifting’

N Brown: Womenswear sales rose in the year to March 4: N Brown
N Brown: Womenswear sales rose in the year to March 4: N Brown

The boss of plus-size fashion retailer N Brown on Thursday said the “heavy lifting” was over as it reported its best womenswear sales performance for almost a decade.

The chain has been transforming from a catalogues business to a digital one under boss Angela Spindler and earlier reported a 2.5% rise in revenue to £900.7 million in the year to March 4.

Womenswear sales, which have stuttered on high streets, were up 4.2% over the year and 10.4% in its second half, their strongest growth since 2008.

The group also announced a deal to sell Simply Be and Jacamo ranges through Tesco Direct.

Spindler said there were several more partnerships in the pipeline.

Her overhaul has a year to run, but she declared the “heavy lifting” complete and insisted N Brown was “now firmly and clearly an online retailer”.

The costs of the revamp hit underlying profits, which slipped 8.7% to £82.6 million. A £22.9 million charge relating to compensation over PPI mis-selling also took its toll on the bottom line.

But investors shrugged off the profit fall and the shares surged 12.25p, or 5.4%, to 238.62p.

N+1 Singer analyst Matthew McEachran described the company’s update as “encouraging”, with “a number of positive indicators for the future”.