H&t Group Plc Share News (HAT)

Tough times are proving increasingly lucrative for pawnbroker H&T with profits last year jumping by more than 80%. Gross profit increased by 43% in 2009 and pre-tax profit by 83% to £18.5m. A final dividend of 5.6p takes the full-year dividend to 8.1p, a 25% increase on 2008."We continue to successfully implement our growth strategy and have invested the proceeds of our growing gold purchasing business into our core pawnbroking activities by adding a further 17 stores, taking the total estate to 122 stores at the year end. In addition, we also operated 54 Gold Bar retail mall units by the end of 2009," chief executive.In store gold purchasing volumes nearly tripled year on year, with gold purchasing scrap margins increased to 39.9% (2008: 35.3%) benefiting from the prevailing price level of gold. This added £4.3m in gross profit to the combined gold purchasing and pawnbroking scrap operations."Market conditions remain favourable; pawnbroking is a resilient business both in recession and in times of economic growth and I have every reason to look with confidence to continued growth in the core pawnbroking activities," chief executive John Nichols said.