N Brown to close all of its remaining stores

N Brown Group, which owns fashion retailers JD Williams, Jacamo and Simply Be, has announced plans to shut down all of its remaining 20 stores, putting 240 jobs at risk.

The company had a 0.4% dip in group revenue and 2.8% drop in product revenue in its Q1 report.

Poor footfall figures led to the decision to close ahead of the lease expiry dates as well the stores only generating 2% of group’s revenue while suffering an EBITDA loss of £3m.

Contrastingly, the report also revealed total online revenue increased 3% and 75% of N Brown’s overall revenue derived from online.

The outcome of the staff consultation, which will be announced on October, aims to incur a one-off cash cost between £18m and £22m if the retailer closes all 20 stores.

Angela Spindler, N Brown’s CEO, said: “As highlighted in our full year results, this was a challenging period for fashion retail. Against this backdrop and a double-digit comparative in product revenue, I am satisfied with our Q1 performance. At this early stage in the financial year our full year expectations are unchanged.

“In line with our online strategy, and given continued weak high street footfall, we have today commenced a consultation process with colleagues over the future of our small store estate. This action has not been taken lightly and we will do all we can to support the colleagues affected during this process.”