Key facts

Leading specialist retailer in the large and robust UK greetings card market: with the value of the singles card market growing and card sending “ingrained” in the UK culture (c. 30 cards sent per adult per annum in the UK)

Approximately one third of our sales are from gift dressings, small gifts and party products, a market estimated to be worth £1-2bn

Operate from over 700 stores across the UK: c50+ stores a year opened over the past 10 years

16 years of unbroken revenue growth: sales of £327m in year to 31 January 2014

Value retailer, with high quality products at affordable prices: majority of cards sold for less than £1

c.6,500 employees in the UK (plus up to 6,000 additional seasonal staff)

Over £2.8m raised for Macmillan Cancer Support

Headquartered in Wakefield, West Yorkshire

Company Website

Financial Calendar

Recent Broker notes

BarChart Indicators

Recent Market news

Card factory's Fundamentals (CARD)

Trading Statement

Key highlights

· Board's expectations for the full financial year unchanged
· Like-for-like store sales growth within management target range
· Continued store roll out with 19 net new stores opened
· Strong pipeline of new store opportunities for the remainder of the financial year
· Relaunch of Card Factory transactional website (www.cardfactory.co.uk)
· Further strong revenue growth from Getting Personal (www.gettingpersonal.co.uk)
· Strong cash generation with further reduction in net debt
· Planned return of surplus cash towards end of current financial year

more....

Trading Update

Card Factory, the UK's leading specialist retailer of greeting cards, dressings and gifts, is pleased to announce a trading update for the six months ended 31 July 2015.

Key highlights

· Total sales growth of +8.0% (H1 FY15: +8.9%)
· Like-for-like store sales growth of +2.7% (H1 FY15: +2.6%)
· Continued store roll out with 36 net new stores opened (H1 FY15: 36)
· 800th store opened during the period
· Confident of delivering another year of approximately 50 net new openings
· Further strong revenue growth from Getting Personal (www.gettingpersonal.co.uk)
· Relaunch of Card Factory transactional website (www.cardfactory.co.uk)
· Planned return of surplus cash towards end of current financial year
· Board's expectations for the full financial year unchanged

Recent trading performance

The Group has continued to trade in line with the Board's expectations.

more....

ShareCast News) - Broker Peel Hunt reiterated its 'buy' recommendation for Card Factory, saying the retailer was one of its top picks for the sector, especially as it was "all systems go" for the upcoming special dividend.
First-half results from the FTSE 250 group indicated a 1% acceleration in the second-quarter pace of growth to 8% like-for-like sales.

There were a few more store closures in Q2 "but the fact is that underlying LFL has picked up here", Peel Hunt said, which implied further market share gain.

"The impact of WH Smith's Card Market has clearly been negligible and has not destabilised the overall market, and it is surely time for a strategic change of direction - and probably store closures - at Clintons."

The broker also expects that, net, there will be less competition this time next year than there are now, indicating that the barriers to entry from the vertical integration are working.

But the main focus was the cash return that management has pledged, with news expected of a "material cash distribution " with the interim results on 22 September.

'Cash Factory', as the broker calls the company, is extremely cash generative, with new stores paying back in less than a year and the business model requiring limited underlying capex and working capital investments.

"Management has been very clear that it will return any excess cash to shareholders and we think that this means a return of between £220m and £335m over the next three years."

Ex dividend tomorrow - 17.5p.

Trading Statement Thursday 26th

StockMarketWire.com

Card Factory expects full-year underlying pre-tax profits will be slightly ahead of market consensus after a good Christmas trading period and against a strong comparative.

The group said this was driven by a combination of like-for-like sales growth and new store roll out.

Year-to-date like-for-like store sales growth improved to 0.4% (11 months ended 31 December 2015: +2.8%).

Against a strong prior year comparative, Card Factory stores delivered a good Christmas trading performance with cumulative like-for-likes for the fourth quarter of the financial year returning to the historic range of 1% to 3%.

A trading update said: "cardfactory.co.uk, ourtransactional site, continues to grow from a low base.

"Including sales from cardfactory.co.uk, total Card Factory year-to-date like-for-like sales grew by 0.5% (11 months ended 31 December 2015: +3.0%)."

Card Factory said the board was confident of delivering full year underlying profit before tax for the current financial year slightly ahead of analyst consensus.

What was the big drop in September for?

CARD FACTORY PLC (CARD.LN) declared a 15-pence-a-share special dividend, despite reporting a 14% fall in pretax profit for the first half of fiscal 2018, citing high cash generation.

Shares down 55.8 pence, or 15.72%, at 299.20 pence.

I suspect the highlighted bits below:

StockMarketWire.com
Card Factory saw strong revenue growth in the first half and has declared a special dividend while investing for the future.

Revenues for the six months to the end of July rose by 6.1% to £179.6m - up 6.7% on an equivalent number of trading days - with like-for-like sales up 3.1%.

Underlying EBITDA fell by 4% to £32.8m and operating profits were down 13.9% at £24.6m.

The group declared an interim dividend of 2.9p per share - up 3.6% - and special dividend of 15p per share, return of £51.2m to shareholders.

Chief executive Karen Hubbard said: 'We have delivered a solid set of interim results with strong growth in like-for-like sales and total revenue, despite the decline in footfall seen across the high street; however, profitability over the half year was impacted by foreign exchange, national living wage and some of the important investments we are making in the business for longer term growth.

'Our business model remains highly cash generative and we are pleased to be announcing another special dividend of 15 pence per share.

'Together with the interim dividend, this means we will have returned £246.5m to shareholders since IPO in May 2014.

Thanks chaps, seems reasonable.

Woodford over 5% http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=5705067

Looking positive Stan - Q3 Trading Statement sometime mid November.

Are you sure Skinny about that, the last TS was in August.

Only going by the last 2 years - see - "Financial Calendar" link in the header.

xd is 9 November

Indeed 2R2 paying over 5% as well.

Added more on the dip.

what looks cheap today could easily be cheaper tomorrow
i confess i have never been a fan of this stock for all sorts of reasons (see #7), though i know goldfinger (3i or whatever) certainly used to be

I don't deal in "could" Alf...just get ya money on.

not likely - per above