LONDON (Alliance News) - Voucher and gift card business Park Group PLC said Wednesday that its full-year results are in line with market expectations, as its business units were benefited from an improving UK economy.
The UK-based gift voucher and prepaid gift card provider gave a positive outlook for 2014, citing the continuing improvement in UK economic conditions and consumer confidence.
For the year ended March 31, Park said that the final Christmas order book was some 2% below the previous year's level, while its consumer business in Ireland made good progress with billing, some 12% ahead of the prior year.
"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% above last year's level, with orders in Ireland up over 3%," the firm said.
Park said its corporate business, with its range of gift cards and vouchers, made generally good progress, and underlying growth in billings, excluding consumer credit, increased 7%.
However the group said that the consumer credit sector remained weak and as a result, overall billings for the corporate business will be roughly 11% below last year's level.
Park said that the expansion of its online trading business, highstreetvouchers.com, has been maintained with orders up 27% year-on-year.
The group said that it will announce its full-year results on June 10.
Park shares were 0.7% higher Wednesday morning, at 50.10 pence per share.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; rowenaharrisdoughty@alliancenews.com; @rharrisdoughty
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