12 Nov 2010 07:00
Albemarle & Bond Holdings PLC
("Albemarle & Bond" or "the Group")
AGM Statement and Trading Update
At the Annual General Meeting ("AGM") of Albemarle & Bond being held at 11.00am today, Chairman Greville Nicholls will make the following statement:
"I am pleased to report that the business is trading in line with management expectations. Demand for small flexible loans at competitive rates has continued to be strong in the first four months of the current financial year. The store expansion programme for 2011 is well underway and the Group is on track to achieve its target of opening 25 new stores in this financial year, of which 16 will open in the first half and this investment, as expected, will have some initial dilutive effect on profits.
Pawnbroking, our core business and largest profit contributor, has continued to perform well, achieving further double digit like for like growth year on year in the pledge book. The increase has primarily been driven by higher average loan sizes as the Group has sought to offer customers the most competitive deals.
The Group has continued to make good progress with the new store opening programme; since the start of the new financial year we have opened 7 stores taking the total to 139, with a further 9 scheduled to open by 31 December 2010. The new stores continue to trade ahead of internal expectations. Performance has been driven by a positive start to the pledge book and gold buying, helping to establish new customer bases in new locations.
In an increasingly dynamic and competitive marketplace volumes in our gold buying division continue to show strong year on year growth. Since reporting our full year results in September 2010, we have opened a further 8 gold buying pop-up shops which takes the total to 27.
The gold jewellery market remains very challenging, and we are focussed on our retail offer as we enter the key Christmas retail trading period.
In other financial services, a good performance from Speedloan, supported by the Group's actions to tighten lending criteria, helped to offset the impact of structural changes in the market, such as the gradual phasing out of cheque books, which affected our cheque cashing business; overall trading is in line with expectations.
As Chairman of the Group I was pleased to see Albemarle and Bond being the first pawnbroking business to be granted membership of the British Retail Consortium in October 2010. This is a significant milestone for what is becoming an increasingly mainstream business on the UK high street, and reflects the significant progress made by the team in communicating the value, transparency and range of our products and services. We expect to make further progress as we continue to review and expand our product offering.
I look forward to reporting further on the Group's progress in due course."
Enquiries
Albemarle & Bond
0118 955 8100
Barry Stevenson, CEO
Liam Moran, CFO
Collins Stewart
020 7523 8350
Mark Dickenson
Piers Coombs
Cardew Group
020 7930 0777
Tim Robertson
Shan Shan Willenbrock
Catherine Maitland
Notes to Editors
Albemarle & Bond is a leading UK jewellery based pawnbroking business with 139 branches offering pawnbroking, jewellery retailing, gold buying and financial services through two formats: Albemarle & Bond Jewellers & Pawnbrokers and Herbert Brown. Founded in Bristol in 1986, the Group is now headquartered in Reading and was admitted to AIM in 1995 (TICKER: 'ABM'). Since inception, the Group has delivered a consistent track record of revenue and gross profit growth.