Clinton announces profits growth

Greeting cards firm Clinton Cards said it was well-set to weather high street gloom today after growing first half sales and profits.

The Essex-based retailer achieved like-for-like sales growth of 2% in the 26 weeks to January 27 - led by a 4.7% rise for its Birthdays brand - with underlying pre-tax profits 18% ahead at £24.4m (€31.15m).

The company has invested £7.4m (€9.4m) in store revamps so far since last July. It has also introduced gift cards which can be spent at a range of high street stores and will begin selling top-ups for pay-as-you-go phones in the second half of the year.

Although trading conditions remain challenging, chairman Don Lewis said the improvements and widened product range gave the group "a degree of confidence for the remainder of the year".

Shares in the group rose 5% as analysts predicted Clinton's lower-cost items and focus on birthdays and celebrations left it better-placed than other retailers to ride out the squeeze on shoppers.

"We continue to believe Clinton's low-ticket event-driven category will outperform the retail sector into a consumer slowdown," Numis Securities' Nick Coulter said.

At the end of January, the group was trading from 716 Clinton Cards stores and 356 Birthdays outlets.

Clinton has worked hard to revive the Birthdays chain it bought in 2004 and said today the brand had swung from a £1.6m (€2.04m) operating loss last time into a £1.1m (€1.4m) profit over the period.

The group also relaunched its website in November last year with a wider range of products. Sales are still modest but an improvement over the previous site.

Mr Lewin founded Clinton Cards in 1968, opening his first shop in Epping, Essex and floating the business in 1988. In the year to last July it had sales of £460m (€587.4m).