Rob Templeman, chief executive of Debenhams, believes the department store group's debt level will be lower than it was expecting.

He says debts at the 1 March half year end will be lower than internal forecasts. The group's net debt as of 1 September was £1 billion, down £80 million over the year.

'We expect that the level of our debt at the half year to be lower than the internal figure that we had forecast at the beginning of the year,' Templeman said after Debenhams published a first-half trading update.

He said the better-than-expected debt outcome reflected the retailer's strong cash-generative nature and the slowing of its store refurbishment programme. Shares were up 5%, or 3p in early trade to 56 pence.

Debenhams carried out 18 refurbishments in its first half and originally planned another nine in its second half to end of August 2008. However, it will now only do three.