N Brown offers a range of products, predominantly clothing, footwear and homewares with a focus on underserved customer groups.

[5] In 1986, N Brown Investments acquired the JD Williams group in a reverse takeover to secure a public quotation.

[12][13] In 2017, shares fell by as much as 9pc when N Brown announced it was facing a £40m hit after finding issues with a credit insurance product it sold to customers between 2006 and 2014, responding to a crackdown by the Financial Conduct Authority.

[16] It established a £50 million three-year lending facility under the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme supported by borrowers.

It also broadened curtained covenants in its existing £125 million unsecured revolving credit facility in anticipation of the half-year test date of August 2020.

[17] Following the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lock down, the company suffered a sharp decline in revenue in March 2020 and then, in August 2020, suspended its dividend for the financial year ending in February 2021.