Clinton Cards issues profit warning after a poor performance in Ireland
SHARES in the UK’s largest greeting card company Clinton Cards dropped more than seven per cent yesterday on news the retailer had issued a profit warning for the current financial year.
The company, which has 860 outlets, said that since its last statement in May sales had dipped and it had faced a “disproportionately poor performance” from its 13 Irish stores.
It said sales would be two per cent lower than previous expectations and “as a result, the board now expects that the group adjusted operating profit for continuing operations will be similar to last year”.
In March, Clinton described its performance as “encouraging”, prompting analysts to upgrade profit forecasts to £16m this year, compared to £12.6m last year.
Numis said the “stubborn underperformance” of the group’s Irish stores would generate £1m in losses.
However Clinton added that it it was not facing serious financial problems and had “significant headroom across all of our banking covenants.”
Its shares yesterday fell 7.1 per cent to close at 36p.