The disgraced former chief executive of David Jones, Mark McInnes, has been appointed chief executive of Premier Retail Group, which owns stores including Just Jeans and Portmans.

Mr McInnes resigned from David Jones in June last year amid allegations of sexual misconduct relating to employees of the department store, including Kristy Fraser-Kirk who settled out of court for $850,000 after suing the company and its former CEO.

Since resigning, Mr McInnes has accepted an honorary position with the Australian Jockey Club, and has been sounding out retail positions around the world.

Mr McInnes's salary will be $2 million a year, and he will be able to double that figure if performance targets are met.

He says he is a changed man and his past misdemeanours will not affect his new role as chief executive.

"I did make an error of judgement, but I owned-up to that error of judgement and I apologised to all concerned," he said.

"I think it is true in life that you do learn more from your failures than from your successes, and I have assured the Premier Board and Solomon Lew that I will uphold Premier's high standards of workplace values and performance."

The announcement comes on the same day as Premier recorded a first-half net profit of $39.4 million, which is a 7 per cent fall compared to the same time a year ago.

Premier's chairman Solomon Lew says natural disasters in Australia, New Zealand and Japan had negatively affected consumer sentiment.

Mr Lew also cited the uncertain domestic political environment, with a minority Federal Government, and the rising price of oil as dampeners of retail demand.

Premier investments was up more than 2 per cent to $6.09 by 1:00pm (AEDT) on the news of Mr McInnes's appointment.