25th Mar 2015 08:12
LONDON (Alliance News) - Card Factory PLC Wednesday reported higher pretax profit for its last financial year, as revenue growth was driven mainly by new store openings and its online business Getting Persaonal, but sales growth from existing stores slowed as it was hit by stiff competition and a decline in boxed Christmas card sales.
The card and gifts retailer reported a pretax profit of GBP42.7 million for the year ended January 31 grew, from GBP30.1 million the year before, as revenue rose 8.1% to GBP353.3 million from GBP326.9 million, driven by the opening of 51 net new stores and 23% growth in revenue at its small, but growing online cards and gifts business Getting Personal to GBP15.5 million.
Excluding costs related to last year's initial public offering, the costs of debt refinancing and movements in derivatives, its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 9.6% to GBP88.2 million, from GBP80.4 million.
Its like-for-like sales grew only 1.8% compared with 3.1% growth a year earlier, which it blamed on "selective localised pricing strategies", an ongoing expected decline in the lower margin Christmas box card segment and competitor promotions.
It said it is confident of opening about 50 net new stores in the current financial year.
The retailer, which had 764 stores at the end of the recently-ended financial year, significantly reduced its net debt to GBP101.4 million from GBP346.9 million, thanks to the money raised in its IPO and due to its senior debt refinancing deal.
It said it will pay a maiden full-year dividend of 6.8 pence, comprising the 2.3p interim dividend it had already announced and a final dividend of 4.5p.
"Overall, we are in an excellent position and we remain confident of our future prospects. We will continue to strongly defend our market leading position, whilst maintaining our focus on delivering best-in-class margins," Chief Executive Richard Hayes said in a statement.
Its underlying Ebitda margin improved to 25.0% in the year, from 24.6% in the previous year, as it kept a lid on overall costs and margins at Getting Personal improved significantly due to more effective marketing and increasing economies of scale.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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