Cake Box Holdings – Full Year Results

Cake Box Holdings plc release their full year results for the twelve months ended 31 March 2019.
Record results in first year as a listed business.

Financial Highlights

	Full year	Full year	Change
	ended	ended
	31 March 19	31 March 18
Revenue	£16.9m	£12.7m	+33%
Gross profit	£7.7m	£5.5m	+41%
EBITDA*	£4.4m	£3.7m	+20%
Pre-tax profit	£3.8m	£3.3m	+14%
Adjusted Pre-tax profit**	£4.0m	£3.3m	+19%
Cash at Bank	£3.1m	£2.5m	+23%
Earnings per share	7.5p	6.9p	+9%
Adjusted Earnings per share**	7.9p	6.9p	+14%
Final dividend	2.4p	1.6p	+50%

 * EBITDA is calculated as operating profit before depreciation
**Calculated after adjusting for AIM listing costs of £599k and fair value uplift of £444k

• Group revenue up 33% to £16.9m (2018: £12.7m)
• Gross margin improved to 45.7% (2018: 42.9%)
• Cash from operations of £3.6 million (2018: £3.5 million)
• Strong balance sheet with £3.1 million cash at period end (31 March 2018: £2.5 million)
• Dividend per share: 3.6 pence per share
  –  Proposed final dividend of 2.4 pence per share (interim dividend of 1.2 pence per share)

Operational highlights

• IPO on AIM successfully completed in June 2018
• 27 new franchise stores added in the period (2018: 23 new franchise stores)
• 113 franchise stores in operation as at 31 March 2019
• Acquired two new production and distribution centres to support further growth

Franchisee store highlights 

• Franchisee total turnover up by 18% to £30.7 million (2018: £25.9 million)
• Franchisee online sales up 58% to £4.4 million (2018: £2.8 million)
• Like-for-like¹ sales growth of 6.5% in franchise stores (2018: 15.0%)

 ¹ Like-for-like: Stores trading for at least one full financial year prior to 31 March 2019

Current trading and outlook

• The Board is pleased with trading so far in the current financial year
• Strong pipeline of new openings
• Confident of delivering growth strategy of six new franchise stores per quarter (two a month)

Neil Sachdev, Non-executive Chairman, commented: 

“This has been a landmark year for Cake Box, due to both the successful completion of our initial public offering and the significant expansion of our family of franchisees.

“Although we have only been on AIM for a short period, we have made a huge amount of progress. New store openings have kept pace with our plans, our franchisees are enjoying good performance and we have a solid platform for growth with two new warehouse and distribution centres secured. As such, we look forward with great confidence.” 

Sukh Chamdal, Chief Executive Officer, commented:  

“In the year Cake Box celebrated its 10^th birthday, I’m delighted to be announcing such a strong set of maiden full year results as a listed business. In just a decade, we have developed a unique proposition and a much-loved national brand which has significant potential for significant further expansion, as we look to introduce more customers to our fabulous fresh cream cake offering. 

“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. In the past financial year, we have made good progress with our strategic priorities of new store growth, growing our existing stores, introducing new products 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.

 “The new financial year has started well and we have already opened four new franchise stores, with two more expected to open before the end of June 2019. The Group is well placed for further progress and the Board is confident of another successful year of growth.”