Brown Group Regulatory News (BWNG)

27 Jan 2005 07:00

Brown (N.) Group PLC27 January 2005 27 January 2005 N Brown Group -Trading Update Core home shopping sales are 0.1% above last year for the 21 weeks to 22ndJanuary 2005. The performance of the new Autumn home and gift catalogues wasencouraging, particularly the Christmas gift ranges where sales were well aboveour expectations, resulting in an increase in total home and leisure sales overlast year, including a contribution from House of Bath which we acquired inNovember 2004. The clothing and footwear retail environment remains challenging anddeflationary with the growth skewed to the younger customer. Our clothing andfootwear sales have also been impacted in January by a four-day delay in therelease of the Spring 2005 catalogues due to the timing of the New Year bankholiday. The strongest performances have come from our core propositions infootwear and corsetry. The gross margin rate on sales is up by 0.6%, primarily due to the successfulbad debt reduction campaign. Group sales for the 21 weeks to 22nd January 2005 are down by 3.1%, comparedwith last year. This includes an expected 25% reduction in sales at House ofStirling, our door-to-door selling business, where losses will reduce from thosesustained in the first half with the impact of management initiatives to improveperformance as outlined in the interim results last October. With the benefits of our targeted cost reduction campaign the board'sexpectations for the performance of the business are broadly unchanged. For further information please contact: N Brown Group plc Tel: 0161 236 8256Alan White, Chief ExecutiveDean Moore, Finance Directorwww.nbrown.co.uk Gavin Anderson & Company Tel: 0207 554 1400Charlotte Stone / Robert Speed This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange