5th Apr 2016 07:00
5 April 2016
Park Group plc
("Park", the "Company" or the "Group")
Trading Update
Park, the UK's leading multi-retailer, multi-channel gift voucher and prepaid gift card provider, today announces an update on trading for its financial year ended 31 March 2016, ahead of the announcement of its Preliminary Results on 7 June 2016.
The good performance of the first half, reported in our Interim Results statement in early December 2015, has extended into the second half of the year. Trading in the months leading up to Christmas, a key period for the Company, was positive, with encouraging performances across all of our operations.
The Consumer business had another successful festive season and sales for the year grew by 7 per cent compared with the previous year. Early orders for Christmas 2016 are again ahead of the equivalent period last year.
The Corporate business made sound progress during the year with its extensive range of incentive and reward products, increasing billings by approximately £14 million, excluding sales to the consumer credit sector. As previously stated, sales in the consumer credit sector have been reducing over recent years and this trend continued in the second half of the financial year, with sales in the sector for the full year expected to be less than £4 million, a reduction of approximately £16 million on last year. However, with increasing sales in other sectors, total billings for the Corporate business in the year are expected to be approximately £2 million below the level of the previous 12 month period. Park's business within the consumer credit sector is now less than one per cent of total Group billings.
Park's financial position remains solid, with cash balances well ahead of last year and the Board expects to report results broadly in line with market expectations. Early indications for 2016/17 from both our Consumer and Corporate businesses are encouraging and give us confidence that it will be another year of progress.
Park Group plc | Arden Partners plc | Tavistock Communications |
Chris Houghton Martin Stewart |
Steve Douglas Benjamin Cryer |
Jeremy Carey Andrew Dunn |
Tel: 0151 653 1700 |
Tel: 020 7614 5920 |
Tel: 020 7920 3150 |
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