Strong gold prices and successful efforts to diversify its business have spurred high street pawnbroker Ramsdens to upgrade its profit outlook. The North East-based firm, which operates nearly 170 stores across the º£½ÇÊÓƵ, says it full year expects pre-tax profits to be higher than the £15.4m anticipated by the market.
CEO Peter Kenyon said the year to the end of September had brought more progress for Ramsdens, which is now eyeing the opening of between eight and 12 new stores every year. Its performance has been helped by very strong gold prices with gross profit in its precious metals purchasing division up 50% year-on-year.
Ramsdens recently launched a dedicated gold buying website which it said had prompted a 15% year-on-year increase in the weight of gold purchased. Its pawnbroking loan book grew by 8% year-on-year to £11.5m with particularly strong growth seen in the second half of the year.
Meanwhile jewellery retail gross profit was up about 15% year-on-year with new and second hand items, along with premium watches, all said to be performing well on the back of investment in stock, digital advertising and staff training. And across its foreign currency exchange business, Ramsdens saw gross profit remain broadly flat year-on-year, against a strong 2024 market that included customers travelling for the UEFA Euros and Olympics.
An international money transfer service introduced earlier this year was said to be growing well. The brand's multi-currency card - which comes without a monthly or annual fee - has grown to 40,000 customers, up from 17,000 at the end of September 2024.
Peter Kenyon, CEO of Ramsdens, said: "FY25 has been another good year of progress for Ramsdens, as we continue to reap the benefits of our diversified income streams. Whilst we have benefited from the sustained high gold price within our purchase of precious metals segment, we’ve also continued to make good progress across our other income streams.
"In particular, our continued success in jewellery retail highlights a growing awareness of our value for money proposition. I would like to again recognise and thank the Ramsdens’ team for their continued hard work making this strong trading performance possible. We look forward to building on this in FY26."
Ramsdens profit expectation upgrade is the second this year, following on from strong half year results published to investors in June. The company introduced a special dividend of 0.5 pence per share.
During this year, Ramsdens opened new stores in Grantham and Burton and merged two of its central Glasgow stores and closed its kiosk site at Teesside Airport.
