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Pawnbroker group H&T has announced an 18% jump in profits despite a rapidly falling gold price.
A 29 per cent drop in the gold price over the last 12 months has had an impact on the business with reduced earnings from both gold purchasing and pawnbroking scrap.
The H&T Group revealed the figures in a trading update for the year up to December 31, 2013, ahead of its preliminary results, which are to be released on 27 February.
The firm, which currently has more than 190 pawnbroker outlets across the UK, said it has benefited from continued presence in the retail jewellery market, and said its “switch in disposition” from scrap sales to retail has yielded good results.
Like-for-like sales in Q4 were up 56 per cent compared with the previous year, and gross profit was up 18 per cent.
The firm said: “As previously communicated we have responded to the challenging trading environment by suspending the new store opening programme, measured cost reductions and a focus on driving retail sales to reduce the exposure to gold price on disposition.
“Cost savings resulted in lower operating costs for 2013 despite the group’s larger footprint and this reduction is expected to continue into 2014 due to the full year effect of measures implemented in H2 2013.”
H&T expects its full year profit before tax to be in line with current market expectations.
