LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Card Factory announced a special dividend on Tuesday as it reported a rise in revenue and profit for the six months to the end of July.
Pre-tax profit was up 7.3% from the first half of last year to £27.6m, on revenues of £169.2m, up 4.8%.

The company upped its interim dividend by 12% to 2.8p per share and declared a special dividend of 15p per share, giving a return of £51.1m to shareholders.

This brought the total returned to shareholders via dividends since the initial public offering just over two years ago to £163.8m.

Chief executive officer Karen Hubbard said: "We have delivered a solid set of interim results with further growth in both revenue and profit, albeit with softer footfall resulting in slightly lower than normal sales growth from our stores.

"Trading in recent weeks has been similar to the trends seen in the first half, with encouraging continued growth in average spend. We approach the important final quarter with confidence in the quality and value of our offer, including our new Christmas ranges, and remain confident of delivering full year underlying profit before tax within the range of expectations."

The company said it saw strong growth in sales from the new Card Factory website, while overall like-for-like sales were up 0.2% versus a 2.8% increase in the previous first half.

During the period, the group opened 34 new stores, bringing the total estate to 848 and it said it is on track to deliver about 50 net new openings by the year end.

At 0817 BST, Card Factory shares were up 5% to 317.35p.

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