Shares in N Brown PLC (LON:BWNG) shot up 10% on Thursday morning after the plus-size fashion retailer reported “good progress” toward digital transformation after closing all its stores last year.
The online shift came in May to revive the group’s flagging fortunes, which had seen shares losing two thirds of their value in the past two years, while other digital fashion houses trended up.
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Online sales rose across its brands, which includes plus-size clothing brands Simply Be and Jacamo, with the retailer reporting 4.6% and 6.6% rises in womenswear and menswear respectively in the half-year until the end of August.
Mature women's brand Ambrose Wilson was the strongest performer, ramping up digital growth 10.5% on the previous year, despite its overall revenues slipping 14% to £23mln.
The group’s overall revenue slid 5% to £433mln, with product sales slipping a further 9%, which the plus-sized retailer said came as a result of closing its legacy offline business and 20 bricks-and-mortar stores last year, as well as moving away from the unprofitable US market.
N Brown swung into profit, increasing its before-tax profit 151.9% to £18.8mln after it posted a dismal £27mln loss in the period last year due to exceptional costs over mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) by its financial arm, which lends credit to customers, and the store closures.
Last month, N Brown set aside a further £25mln for payouts over the mis-selling of PPI.
Chief executive Steve Johnson said the new strategy had made “good progress” toward returning the group to “sustainable profit growth”.
Johnson added: "The retail environment remains heavily promotional, but we are concentrating on continuing to improve our customer proposition and ensuring we operate as efficiently as possible.”
Shares were up 10% to 111.6p in early trading on Thursday.