LONDON (ShareCast) -

Johnson, who was appointed interim CEO in September 2018, was CEO of financial services for the group from February 2016. He joined N Brown from Shop Direct, where he was financial services marketing and product director for four years. Prior to that, he held senior roles at Sainsbury's and Halifax.

Chairman Matt Davies said: "Having conducted a thorough and extensive search process, the board is delighted to appoint Steve as CEO. As interim CEO he has shown the strategic thinking, pace, energy and focus which demonstrates that he is the best person to take the business forward. He brings a wealth of senior management experience across a number of large retail and financial services companies."

Shore Capital, which has N Brown as a house stock, said: "We believe that after a period of uncertainty about the executive leadership position for the group that its colleagues and shareholders alike will welcome confirmation of the appointment.

"We believe that Steve Johnson has very strong capabilities in financial services, where the group has performed robustly in recent times with an improving and evolving credit proposition to our minds amidst considerable change to the regulatory environment. In this respect we point out that a very capable team has been assembled to deliver that output.

"Now Mr Johnson has the task of embracing the product and digital sides of the business and making sure that the right team and capability are also in place to necessarily progress. Progress in this respect will be important to the future of a group that continues to have a distinctive and potentially very interesting business mix around fashion for all sizes and already high (circa 80%) online participation."

At 1120 GMT, the shares were up 1% to 107p.

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