Brown Group Regulatory News (BWNG)

Tuesday 3 July 2012

N Brown Group plc

DIRECTORATE CHANGES

Directorate Changes

Lord Alliance of Manchester has announced his intention to stand down as Chairman of N Brown Group after over 40 years in the role. He is to be replaced by Andrew Higginson, formerly an executive director of Tesco plc, who will join the board as a non-executive director in July and become Chairman on 1 September 2012. Lord Alliance will chair the 47th - and his last - N Brown AGM in Manchester today and will remain on the board as a non-executive director.

Alan White, who has been chief executive of N Brown since 2002, has also informed the board of his intention to retire from the company in the second half of 2013. Alan, who also served as group finance director from 1985 - 1999, intends to build a portfolio of non-executive roles (he is currently on the board of Topps Tiles). He will continue in his existing role and remain fully committed until a new chief executive is settled fully in the business.

In addition two of the long-standing non-executive directors will step down from the board at the end of 2012. Nigel Alliance OBE, who has been a director of N Brown Group plc since 1969, is retiring. He has contributed to the business since the core J D Williams business was acquired in 1963 and he will remain a major shareholder.

Lord Stone of Blackheath, who has served on the board for ten years, is stepping down in recognition of the requirements of the UK Corporate Governance Code. His vast retailing experience, imagination and original thinking will be missed. It is expected that two new appointments to replace the departing non-executive directors will be made by the end of 2012.

Comments on Directorate Changes

Lord Alliance said: "After over 40 years as Chairman of N Brown, I felt the time had come to pass on the role to a new generation which can continue to exploit the potential of multi-channel retailing. We have come a long way from the Manchester mail order business I bought in 1963 and today more than half our sales are online. The company is in great shape, and will benefit from an injection of new blood and new ideas. We are very fortunate to have found Andrew, who has an impressive record in retailing and understands the exciting new opportunities available to N Brown. As an ongoing major shareholder and board member I look forward to working with Andrew and to handing over to him the chairmanship of a company which has been so close to my heart for so many years."

Commenting on his appointment Andrew Higginson said: "I am very excited at the prospect of joining N Brown as Chairman. Under the current management, the company has positioned itself brilliantly in the online home shopping market while retaining the loyalty of its traditional mail order customer base. It is a company with a long tradition of providing service, convenience and value for money to its customers, many of whom have shopped with it from generation to generation."

Commenting on the announcement Alan White, Chief Executive, added: "The company has changed beyond all recognition since I joined in 1985 when revenue was £43m and pre -tax profit £4.6m and it has been an exciting and thoroughly enjoyable journey to get to where we are today. After 25 years service I have taken the very difficult decision to leave the group in 2013 and think about the next stage of my career. I now look forward to working with our excellent new Chairman, Andrew Higginson, to recruit the best new chief executive available to drive the company forward in the future."

-Ends-

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Lord Alliance - Notes

Lord Alliance entered the mail order business in 1963 when he bought JD Williams, which had been established in Manchester in 1883, for £1.44m. He then acquired other home shopping businesses before injecting them into a small quoted "shell" company N Brown six years later. Since then the company has had a long and sustained track record of growing sales and profits, mainly through organic growth, plus the occasional bolt on acquisition, such that in its latest financial year, N Brown recorded sales of £753m and profits before tax of £97m. Since 1969 the company has paid out more than £400m in dividends and its current market value is over £700m.

Andrew Higginson - Biography

Andrew Higginson was group finance and strategy director of Tesco plc for eleven years. Following Tesco's purchase of RBS's 50 percent stake in Tesco Personal Finance for £950m in 2008, he became head of its retailing services division, which includes the Tesco Bank, Tesco.com, Tesco Telecoms and Tesco Direct. He was one of the key group of senior executives credited with masterminding Tesco's rise to become the world's third largest retailer with annual sales of £67.6 billion. He started his career at Unilever and Guinness, and was group finance director of Laura Ashley and later of Burton Group. He has been an independent non-executive director of BSkyB plc since 1 September 2004. He announced his retirement from Tesco at the end of last year.