Brown & Jackson slashes losses

A SURGE in bargain-hunters at Poundstretcher and the revamped Instore pushed up Brown & Jackson's underlying sales 11% in the six weeks to 9 October, ahead of market expectations.

Like-for-like sales for the half-year to 28 August rose 5%, helping halve interim pre-tax losses to £2.2m.

B&J will have 75 Instores and 240 Poundstretchers by the end of November and current trading is robust.

Chairman Christo Wiese said plans for the festive period were in place and the group remained confident of continued strong sales.

He added: 'The full year outcome clearly remains dependent on the key Christmas trading period.'

Brokers were positive. Nick Bubb, analyst at Evolution Securities, upped his recommendation from 'reduce' to 'add', his price target from 59p to 70p and his year to end-February 2005 pre-tax profit forecast from £9m to £10m.

Seymour Pierce reiterated its 'outperform' stance and £8.5m forecast.

Brown & Jackson shares were down 1 1/2p at 62 1/2p.

Tradegro, the South African group, owns about 53% of B&J. Chief executive Angus Monro, the former Matalan PLC boss, holds almost 10%.