Business
AGM Trading Update
AGM Trading Update.
About this update from Card Factory Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 1677G Card Factory PLC 25 May 2017 \n\nFor release at 7.00am on 25 May 2017\n25 May 2017\n \nCard Factory plc (\"Card Factory\" or the \"Group\")\n \nQ1 trading update - a good start to the year\n \nCard Factory, the UK's leading specialist retailer of greeting cards, dressings and gifts, is pleased to announce a trading update for the quarter ended 30 April 2017 to coincide with its Annual General Meeting to be held later today. \n \nKey highlights \n \n· First quarter like-for-like (\"LFL\") store sales at upper end of targeted range of +1% to +3%\n· Underlying group sales growth of +6.1% on the basis of an equivalent number of trading days, an improvement on the FY17 full year growth rate of +4.3%\n· Total reported sales growth of +4.9%, including impact of one extra trading day in prior year leap year\n· Continued store roll out with 11 net new stores opened (Q1 FY17: 20); on track for our target of c50 for full year\n· Trial stores to be opened in Republic of Ireland later this year\n· Strong cash generation with further reduction in net debt\n· Board's expectations for the full financial year unchanged\n \nRecent trading performance\n \nIn the first quarter ended 30 April 2017, underlying Q1 Group sales growth was +6.1% after normalising for the impact of last year's leap year with the equivalent prior year period including one extra trading day (Q1 FY18: 89 trading days; Q1 FY17: 90 trading days) - a pleasing improvement on the full year rate of growth of +4.3% delivered in FY17. \n \nIncluding the impact of one extra trading day in last year's leap year, total reported first quarter revenue increased by +4.9% (Q1 FY17: +6.5%). \nFor Card Factory stores, Q1 LFL sales growth was at the upper end of the target range of +1 to +3%. \nIn the first quarter we opened 11 net new stores (Q1 FY17: 20) bringing the total estate to 876 stores as at 30 April 2017. We remain on track to deliver approximately 50 net new stores in the current financial year, including an increasing number of retail park stores, which are performing w...