Simply Be (skintones underwear collection)
N Brown Group revenue for the year to March 4, 2023, contracted by 5.3% to £677.5 million, reflecting challenging online market conditions. Adjusted profit before tax dropped 82.6% from £43m to £7.5m while product revenue fell 6.9% to £433m for the company that owns Jacamo and Simply Be.
Looking ahead, the group is set to “continued strategic progress” saying it wants to improve its bottom line moving further into clothing and has launched a new online mobile app for Simply Be, with more investment to come in FY24 and new websites for Jacamo and JD Williams. Adjusted profit before tax dropped 82.6% from £43m to £7.5m while product revenue fell 6.9% to £433m. Adjusted EBITDA fell 39.7% to £57m- in line with the latest board and market expectations.
N Brown chief executive Steve Johnson said:
We continued to make strategic progress despite these challenges, increasing investment during the year, and we successfully launched our new mobile-first website for Simply Be.
I would like to thank every single one of our colleagues for their role in achieving this progress, through their commitment to serving our customers and supporting our vision of championing inclusion.
We are expecting the weaker consumer confidence to continue weighing on our performance before we see a return to growth and are therefore keeping a tight control of costs.
We remain confident in our strategy and are more focused than ever on the transformational priorities that will deliver the biggest benefits, including new websites for Jacamo and JD Williams, and the delivery of our new financial services platform.
We have remained adaptable to the trading environment which became more challenging during the year, as inflation impacted both our customers and our cost base. Although volumes softened, we maintained a disciplined approach to trading, with a particular focus on upholding margin despite a promotional backdrop.”
