Conservative credit policies held back like-for-like growth at N Brown, but the resulting lower level of bad debt meant an increase in gross margin and a 10.3 per cent increase in underlying earnings per share to 12.15p.
Although underlying sales climbed just 0.6 per cent, overall sales were boosted by acquisitions, which increased revenue by 3.2 per cent to £349.7m.
Despite sluggish organic sales growth, N Brown's growth story remains intact. The proportion of higher spending online customers is still rising, up 17 per cent to £150m. And progress on its low-cost international expansion is slow but steady - German revenues are now at £4.5m, and the group reported an "encouraging response" to the first 250,000 catalogues sent to US shoppers.
Broker Peel Hunt expects full year EPS of 26.2p, up from 25.5p last year.
When: 11/03/10
Price: 216p
Performance to date: +16%
