Cake Box profits rise amid store rollout

(Sharecast News) - Cake Box reported a jump in first-half profit and revenue on Monday as it rolled out new stores.
In the six months to the end of September, pre-tax profit at the company - which makes egg-free fresh cream cakes - rose 27% to £1.74m on revenue of £8.77m, up 6% on the previous year.

Earnings per share were up 30% to 3.67p and the interim dividend was lifted 33% to 1.60p.

Like-for-like sales at its franchise stores grew 6.9%, while franchisee total turnover rose 26% to £17.8m and online sales were 32% higher at £2.64m.

Chief executive officer Sukh Chamdal said: "During the period our focus has been on the consolidation of our strategy as we continue to grow the business through rolling out new stores, improving our customer offer and expanding our customer base, which is attracted to our unique, egg-free proposition. Our continued momentum has again led to a good financial performance during the half.

"We have added nine stores to our portfolio during the half year, have a good pipeline for the remainder of the second half and are on track to achieve our store openings target for the year."

Cake Box said trading in the first eight weeks of the second half has been "encouraging" and it has already opened five new stores, including its first in Wales.

At 0950 GMT, the shares were up 9.4% at 152p.