Patisserie Holdings (LSE: CAKE) has bounced higher in Wednesday trade following the release of bubbly full-year financials.
The baking beauty was last 4% higher from last night’s close and just off 11-month highs around 340p per share. And I fully expect it to rise to fresh peaks sooner rather than later.
The Birmingham business advised that revenues grew 11% between October and March, to £55.5m, a result that powered pre-tax profit 16% higher to £9.7m.
Patisserie Valerie once again proved the outstanding performer, with sales here surging 15.7% year-on-year to £40.4m. Revenues at the baker’s other brands grew by a far-more-modest 0.6%, to £15.9m.
And Patisserie Holdings continues to make good progress following the period’s end, with chief executive Paul May commenting that “performance in the six weeks after the period end has been good with a strong Easter period.”
But strong sales momentum is not the only cause for celebration at the cakes colossus. Indeed, Patisserie Holdings also advised that the high food costs witnessed during the first half are now stabilising “with the majority of core ingredients now at normalised levels.”
A tasty treat
And it has ambitious plans to keep the tills ticking over. The business opened 10 new stores during October-March alone, and today affirmed its target to open 20 per annum across a variety of locations including high streets, concessions and retail parks.
And promisingly Patisserie Holdings advised that its new outlets are “trading strongly.”
The City certainly believes the café group has what it takes to keep charging, and to print earnings growth of 15% in both of the years to September 2017 and 2018.
While a forward P/E ratio of 21.5 times may appear a little toppy on paper — the widely-regarded value benchmark falls at around 15 times — I reckon Patisserie Holdings’ potential to keep profits marching long into the future merits such a premium.
Staffing star
Pagegroup (LSE: PAGE) has also ripped to significant price levels in recent sessions, the stock recently dealing at its highest since December 2015, above 500p per share.
The recruiter received a boost last month after advising that group gross profit surged 9.1% at constant currencies during January-March, to £170.3m. This represented a record quarter for Pagegroup and reflected strong growth across most of its markets, including at its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions where collective profits rocketed 14.8% to £78.6m.
Sure, Pagegroup benefitted from the later timing of Easter this year, but I fully expect sales to continue to impress as economic conditions improve in Europe. And in the longer term, I expect operations in Asia and the Americas to provide spectacular returns (gross profits in the Americas alone shot 15.2% higher during quarter one).
The number crunchers expect Pagegroup’s strong growth record to keep on rolling with advances of 9% and 7% in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
And although these figures make the staffing specialist slightly expensive on paper (the firm deals on a prospective P/E ratio of 19.7 times), this should not prove a barrier to the stock continuing its recent punchy advance, in my opinion.
