Retailer announces statutory losses of £57.5m

Jacamo

Retailer N Brown saw a slight increase of adjusted profit before tax of 2.5% to £83.6m.

However, the company posted a statutory loss of £57.5m – an increase of 454%. The loss was largely due to exceptional costs connected to the decline of its high street shops.

The Manchester firm said in its final results that the transformation to a digital retailer continues with 80% of product revenue now digital.

The company owns the Simply Be, Jacomo and JD Williams brands.

Adjusted EBITDA increased 7.9% to £128m and the statutory loss before tax is a reflection of exceptional costs, largely relating to legacy issues

Steve Johnson, Chief Executive, 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.”

“A re-focusing of our strategy on delighting our customers is now required. We will initially focus on our core UK market, simplifying our approach to ensure our brand and product proposition continues to improve and resonate with customers. We will also look to harness data and technology to offer customers more choice and flexibility when shopping with us.”

“All of this aims to return N Brown to sustainable profit growth, through a digital, retail-led, customer- centric strategy and at this stage in the new financial year our overall expectations are unchanged. We look forward to the future with confidence.”

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