Hot cakes: Cake Box revenue rises in first year as listed company
Cake Box has posted a sharp rise in revenue and profit for the full year as customers get a taste for its egg-free products.
Read more: Cake walk: Cake Box revenues soar 30 per cent after summer IPO
The figures
Revenue jumped 33 per cent to £16.9m in the year to the end of March.
Pre-tax profit rose 14 per cent to £3.8m.
Cash at bank increased by 23 per cent to £3.1m.
Earnings per share lifted nine per cent to 7.5p.
Why it’s interesting
The figures will leave a sweet taste in the mouth for Cake Box, which floated on London’s Aim market in June last year.
The retailer, which specialises in egg-free cream cakes, enjoyed a strong year of trading, with like-for-like sales growth of 6.5 per cent in its franchise stores.
Revenue jumped sharply to £16.9m, although it fell just short of the £17.1m forecast earlier this year.
The chain, which is celebrating its tenth year, opened 27 new franchise stores across the UK, taking its total to 113 stores.
Investors will take an even greater slice of the profits this year, as the final dividend increased by 50 per cent to 2.4p.
Cake Box said it has a strong pipeline of new openings and was confident of maintaining its growth strategy of two new franchise store openings a month.
Read more: Cake Box revenue and profits up following Aim listing
What Cake Box said
“These results demonstrate the continuing appeal of the Cake Box brand, to both customers and franchises, combined with the financial strength of the group, particularly the strong cash generative nature of our business model,” said chief executive Sukh Chamdal.
“In the past financial year, we have made good progress with our strategic priorities of new store growth, growing our existing stores, introducing new product lines and developing our digital marketing.
“We are pleased that our geographical spread has increased but there remain plenty of regions where we are confident there is still significant scope for expansion.”