Retailer Card Factory hailed a good start to its financial year as the group expanded the chain with another 19 stores on the high street.
The greetings card and gifts group, which floated on the stock market last May, posted a 7.5% rise in revenues for its first quarter to April 30 thanks to a combination of like-for-like growth, new shop openings and online business.
Richard Hayes, chief executive of Card Factory, said the group had enjoyed a "positive start" to its new financial year.
The sales growth marked a slight slowdown on the 8.5% reported a year earlier, but remained in line with growth seen in the previous six months.
The group did not report like-for-like sales growth, but said it remained "in the range targeted by management".
Card Factory was valued at £766 million when it floated on the London Stock Exchange last May and has since seen its market capitalisation increase by more than £380 million, worth £1.15 billion at today's prices.
The group delivered a 10% hike in underlying earnings to £88.2 million in its last financial year.
Card Factory, which is headquartered in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, expanded its chain by 19 to 783 in the first quarter, with aims to add 50 net new stores over the full year.
It also relaunched its Card Factory website at the end of April with a greater product range and aims to boost online revenues from its "current very small base".
The site runs alongside Card Factory's main online arm, Getting Personal, which offers personalised cards and gifts.
Card Factory launched in 1997 with just one store and now has a nationwide presence.
ends
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article