18 Nov 2011 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:
"The positive trading performance, for the financial year ended 30 June 2011, has continued on into the new financial year resulting in a good performance for the first four months.
During this most recent period demand for short term cash has remained high, and with a strong gold price, the Group's services enabling customers to access good value loans by pawning gold jewellery and realise cash by selling unwanted gold jewellery have continued to grow.
Pawnbroking, the Group's largest division, delivered another consistent performance with the Pledge Book growing against exceptional 2010 comparatives.
Gold buying performed strongly in existing, new, and pop up stores, delivering gains in both volumes and margin.
Not surprisingly, the market for retailing gold jewellery remains very weak and the Company continues to prefer to scrap second hand jewellery if this generates a better return on capital.
Other Financial Services delivered a solid profit performance with the encouraging volumes on the new Payday Anyway product starting to offset, as planned, the declines in our cheque based products.
As of today, the Group has 169 full line stores and 38 gold buying pop-up shops and is on track to open at least 25 new full line stores in the financial year end 2012. To date we have opened 10 of these stores and will open another 4 before December. We also expect to have 40 pop-up shops trading as we go into the Christmas period. Very importantly, the stores we opened in 2009 and 2010 have contributed to profits which has meant that, the overall profit dilution of the new store opening programme is lower. Stores in London are performing particularly well, and the Group now has 37 stores within the M25 compared to 19 in January 2010.
The Group is in a strong financial position and recently completed a successful refinancing with a 5 year debt facility increased from £42 million to £65 million creating ample headroom to accommodate the future growth of the business. The new facility has been signed on terms which are competitive in current markets, but which will result in higher financing costs compared to our old facility. However, when combined with our new and significantly lower cost rolling hedging strategy, there will be a positive net impact on group profits this year.
The good start to the year leaves us well placed to meet management expectations for the full year and I look forward to reporting further progress."
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
To access more information on the company please visit: www.albemarlebondplc.com
Images of the Group's stores are available from the website.
Notes to Editors: Albemarle & Bond Holdings PLC is a leading UK pawnbroking and retail financial services group with 169 full line branches offering pawnbroking, jewellery retailing, gold buying and financial services through two formats: Albemarle Bond and Herbert Brown. Founded in Bristol in 1986, the Group is now headquartered in Reading and was admitted to AIM in 1995 (TICKER: 'ABM').The Group has delivered 20 years of consistent revenue and profit growth.