9th Oct 2014 07:14
(Clarifying in second paragraph that the company's expectation is for the second half.)
LONDON (Alliance News) - British home shopping retailer N Brown Group PLC Thursday reduced its full-year profit guidance, after saying trading in the second half so far has been hit by weaker September sales, following on from a drop in both revenue and profit for the first half of the year.
The owner of brands including JD Williams, Figleaves online lingerie store and the plus-size Simply Be brand, has been investing in revitalising and expanding its businesses. However, it said that a lower first-half profit due to its planned later phasing of products and marketing activities, will not flow through into a better second half as previously expected.
"The benefits of re-phasing will not flow through as expected during the second half as a result of the very difficult market conditions across the clothing sector in recent weeks," said Chairman Andrew Higginson in a statement.
N Brown said it now expects its full year pretax profit to be in the range of GBP88 million to GBP92 million, before booking GBP5 million in restructuring costs in the second half.
Last year, the group reported a pretax profit of GBP100.1 million.
N Brown on Thursday posted a pretax profit of GBP42.7 million for the 26 weeks to August 30, lower than the GBP44.1 million profit it recorded in the first half of last year.
First-half revenue fell to GBP407.3 million, down from 409.6 million the prior year.
It left its interim dividend unchanged at 5.67 pence per share.
Last month, the Manchester-based company said planned phasing adjustments to Simply Be and its main brand JD Williams fashion ranges held back sales in the first-half. It also reduced marketing investment in catalogues by 24% during the period, and shifted spend into new customer recruitment activities, albeit weighted more towards the second half, it said.
N Brown shares were down 5.8% at 327.90 pence Thursday morning.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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