Ramsdens Holdings PLC's (LON:RFX) combination of pawnbroking and foreign currency served it well in its latest half-year.
Profits rose by 23% to £6.2mln in the six months to September, with Ramsdens also taking advantage of a rising gold price to bank £600,000 through the scrapping of old jewellery stock.
Revenues rose by 30% to £32.5mln with FX up 15% to £8.4mln, jewellery 22% higher at £5.5mln and pawnbroking up by a third to £6.9mln.
Peter Kenyon, Ransden's chief executive said the second half has started solidly ahead of Christmas, which is an important period for the jewellery arm.
The interim dividend rises by 13%.
House broker Liberum said the focus should remain on what the company can do with the 22 stores and 17 loan books recently acquired from The Money Shop.
"We view this company both as a mid to high single-digit space grower and as an industry consolidator, with weakening competition,"
Liberum has a target price of 248p. In early morni9ng trading, Ramsdens' shares were 3% higher at 206p.
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