2nd Apr 2014 07:00
2 April 2014
PARK GROUP PLC
("Park" or "the Company")
Trading Update
Park (AIM: PKG.L), the UK's leading multi-retailer gift voucher and prepaid gift card provider, today announces an update on trading for its financial year ended 31 March 2014. The Company will announce its preliminary results on Tuesday 10 June 2014.
The Board expects to report results for the year ended 31 March 2014 in line with market expectations.
In December we reported that orders for Christmas 2013 for our UK Consumer business were some two per cent below the level of the previous year; the final Christmas order book was little changed from this level. The Consumer business in Ireland made good progress with billings ahead by over 12 per cent.
The gradual improvement in trading conditions, referenced at our Interim Results last December, continued throughout the second half. The recovery of the UK economy now appears more stable and this has had a positive impact across our business units.
While the improvement in consumer confidence came too late to impact billings for Christmas 2013, the early signs for Christmas 2014 are encouraging. Park's UK order book is currently 10 per cent above last year's level, with orders in Ireland up over 3 per cent.
The Corporate business, with its extensive ranges of gift cards and vouchers, made generally good progress and underlying growth in billings, excluding consumer credit, increased by over 7 per cent compared with last year. The consumer credit sector remained weak and as a result, overall billings for the Corporate business will be approximately 11 per cent below last year's level.
The expansion of Park's online trading business, highstreetvouchers.com, has been maintained with orders advancing 27 per cent year on year.
The outlook for 2014 remains positive, given the continuing improvement in UK economic conditions and consumer confidence.
Park Group plc | Arden Partners plc | Tavistock Communications |
Chris Houghton Martin Stewart |
Adrian Trimmings Katelin Kennish |
John West Andrew Dunn |
Tel: 0151 653 1700 |
Tel: 020 7614 5920 |
Tel: 020 7920 3150 |
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