7th Aug 2014 09:21
LONDON (Alliance News) - Greeting cards retailer Card Factory PLC said Thursday that sales grew by almost 9% in the first half of its financial year, supported by new store openings and online sales.
In an upbeat trading statement, the company said it was confident in growing its market share, it remains highly cash generative, and it continued to trade in line with board expectations.
"The group continued to trade well in the first half of the current financial year with good growth coming from the existing store estate and new store roll out programme, as well as from our smaller but developing online proposition," said Chief Executive Richard Hayes in a statement.
The greetings card retailer said sales were up 8.9% in the six months to July 31, while like-for-like store sales grew by 2.6%.
In the first half of 2013, the retailer reported revenue of GBP137.2 million, and a pretax profit of GBP3.7 million.
The company said sales growth has been boosted by its new store roll-out programme, having added 36 new net stores in the first half of the year, all of which it said are trading in line with expectations.
"The group has a strong pipeline of additional new store opportunities and remains confident of achieving planned openings of approximately 50 net new stores in the current financial year," the company said.
Card Factory said it has reduced its net debt to less than GBP150 million as at July 31, and said it expects to reduce that even further by year end, as its cash generation its usually strong in the second half.
Commenting on the results in a research note, Investec analyst Kate Calvert said: "The probability of a capital return in the medium term improves. We view Card Factory as a proven brand-driven 8-10 year roll-out story...We believe the market continues to undervalue the strength of its cash generation and growth prospects."
The company said it will announce its interim results on September 18.
Card Factory shares were up 2.9% Thursday morning, trading at 211.00 pence.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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