Card Factory LFL revenues drop as footfall declines

(Sharecast News) - Card Factory posted a drop in underlying pre-tax profit and like-for-like sales on Tuesday as it took a hit from extreme weather and consumer caution, but overall revenue rose and the retailer announced a special dividend.In the six months to the end of July, revenue ticked up 3.2% to £185.3m, helped along by new store openings and growth in the online business, with pre-tax profit up 17.2% to £27.2m. However, like-for-like sales slipped 0.2% compared to a 3.1% increase in the same period a year ago amid lower footfall, and underlying pre-tax profit fell 13.9% to £22.7m.The company announced another special dividend of 5p a share, which combined with a 2.9p a share interim dividend means it will have returned almost £300m to shareholders since its IPO in May 2014.Like-for-like sales were hit by lower high street footfall in a weak consumer environment, which led to lower sales of the Everyday ranges. Footfall was impacted by extreme weather conditions and continued consumer caution across the UK.The Card Factory website delivered sales growth of around 85% and is on track to be profitable this year. The trading performance at Getting Personal remains challenging, however, with increased price competition and rising costs of customer acquisition impacting the business.Revenue at Card Factory was up 3.7% at £178.6m but revenue at Getting Personal - its separately branded personalised card and gift website - was down 8.5% to £6.7m.Card Factory, which issued a profit warning in August, said it continues to expect underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation for the full year to be in the range of £89m to £91m.Chief executive officer Karen Hubbard said: "We have delivered solid interim results with overall sales growth, despite the weak consumer environment and particularly challenging footfall across the high street, driven by various factors. Profitability was impacted by lower like-for-like sales, but we continue to largely mitigate the headwinds we face through various business efficiencies."Despite this difficult consumer backdrop, we have seen record numbers for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Father's Day both in terms of volume and value. This strong seasonal performance gives us confidence for the key Christmas trading period."The company said trading in recent weeks has remained challenging given the weak consumer environment, but there has been growth in average spend and the Everyday ranges have performed better.Liberum said the disappointment in the H1 results will be the declared special dividend of 5p, which is at the lower end of the guided 5p-10p range. It said the company's decision to keep the ordinary dividend flat at 2.9p is a sensible move given the increase in leverage, which stood at 1.8x as at 31 July, compared with 1.5x in the prior year."We don't expect any change to consensus profit estimates today, but the dividend result could see some pressure on the shares," Liberum said. At 1015 BST, the shares were down 3.8% to 179.10p.