Trading Statement

Brown (N.) Group PLC
27 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 22nd
January 2005. The performance of the new Autumn home and gift catalogues was
encouraging, particularly the Christmas gift ranges where sales were well above
our expectations, resulting in an increase in total home and leisure sales over
last year, including a contribution from House of Bath which we acquired in
November 2004.

The clothing and footwear retail environment remains challenging and
deflationary with the growth skewed to the younger customer. Our clothing and
footwear sales have also been impacted in January by a four-day delay in the
release of the Spring 2005 catalogues due to the timing of the New Year bank
holiday. The strongest performances have come from our core propositions in
footwear and corsetry.

The gross margin rate on sales is up by 0.6%, primarily due to the successful
bad debt reduction campaign.

Group sales for the 21 weeks to 22nd January 2005 are down by 3.1%, compared
with last year. This includes an expected 25% reduction in sales at House of
Stirling, our door-to-door selling business, where losses will reduce from those
sustained in the first half with the impact of management initiatives to improve
performance as outlined in the interim results last October.

With the benefits of our targeted cost reduction campaign the board's
expectations for the performance of the business are broadly unchanged.

For further information please contact:

N Brown Group plc                                 Tel: [phone]
Alan White, Chief Executive
Dean Moore, Finance Director
www.nbrown.co.uk

Gavin Anderson & Company                          Tel: [phone]
Charlotte Stone / Robert Speed


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange