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19/5/2020
13:37 | toffeeman: May 5th - the Times
Hotel Chocolat
This chocolatier and cocoa grower moved swiftly to raise capital early at the start of coronavirus, bagging £22 million from shareholders in late March to help to fund growth and to provide a buffer against the coronavirus pandemic.
Given that the virus took hold only weeks before its busy trading period over Easter, it also seems to have adjusted to life under lockdown. All 125 of its stores in Britain, along with its four in the United States and five in Japan, are shut; social distancing is in place at its packing facility in Cambridgeshire and, after trimming its range, the company has stayed open for online orders only.
Hotel Chocolat opened its first shop in north London in 2004. Unlike most chocolatiers, it grows its own cocoa on a plantation that it owns in St Lucia, where it also runs a hotel. As well as operating restaurants and cafés, the company sells accessories including hand creams, body scrubs and lotions.
In a trading update yesterday that was light on detail but upbeat, it said that it had experienced strong demand online over Easter, though not enough to offset a material fall in trading because of its store closures. Analysts at Liberum, the house broker, estimate that just over half of the lost shop sales have been made up online.
The company also put in place a new £35 million flexible credit facility, £25 million of which was through the government-backed loan scheme. While the facility is in place — it expires in December 2021, but can be repaid early — the retailer cannot pay dividends.
It says good things about the popularity of Hotel Chocolat that customers were happy to move their orders online. Nevertheless, Liberum has lopped £17 million off its forecast sales for the second half to £43 million. The broker reckons that it will be lossmaking over the second half of the year and will announce profit before tax and other items of £8.5 million for the full year, against £20.7 million last time.
The shares, which had a modest yield when the dividend was in place, trade for an extraordinary 278 times Liberum’s forecast earnings for this year. Up 2½p, or 0.8 per cent, to 332½p yesterday, they are not for this observer.
Advice Avoid
Why Has responded well but the shares are expensive
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24/2/2020
10:33 | rathean: I like HOTC at this price if it wasn't for its exposure to the pandemic. Will wait for a lower entry point imo dyor ofc.
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20/7/2019
21:08 | thewheeliedealer: Hi all,
Fairly recently I wrote a Blog about HOTC and have only just got around to shoving a Link on here. I don't hold HOTC (yet) but quite like it and may well take the plunge at some point. This is the link to Part 2 but there is a link to Part 1 at the start.
Cheers, WD
@WheelieDealer
hTTp://wheeliedealer.weebly.com/educational-blogs/stock-idea-hotel-chocolat-hotc-part-2
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11/4/2019
17:04 | deouro: I’ve added HOTC to my isa. Seems like very happy staff, great products, growing branches organically and I like that they are dipping their toes into the Japanese market. I think the quality of the products are good enough for that huge market. Their packages are already near the standard japanese gift size. A HOTC consession, even with current branding of merch/uniform & slight tweaks to the prodtcs would not look out of place in any Japanese station mall or depachika.
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27/9/2017
06:40 | nithbank: Preliminary ResultsHotel Chocolat Group plc, a premium British chocolatier and omni-channel retailer, today announces its preliminary results for the period ended 2 July 2017.Financial highlights: -- Revenue of GBP105.2m (2016: GBP91.1m), growth of +12% year on year(1) -- Underlying EBITDA (2) up 32% to GBP16.3m (2016: GBP12.4m) -- Profit before tax up 100% to GBP11.2m (2016: GBP5.6m) -- Profit after tax up 115% to GBP8.8m (2016: GBP4.1m) -- Earnings per share up 100% to 7.8p (2016: 3.9p) -- Maiden dividend of 1.6p per share Operational highlights: -- Strong sales growth across retail, digital & corporate channels -- Opened 12 new stores in the period taking Group total to 94 stores -- Now have 15 Shop+cafe format stores, giving the ability to trade well in a wider variety of catchments -- GBP4m upgrade of truffle making production line complete; truffle making capacity increased by 70% -- 6 new wholesale accounts since period end -- Opened 2 franchised stores to date in Hong Kong
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19/9/2017
08:34 | bookbroker: Be surprised if this cos. chocolate estate on St Lucia entirely unscathed by the latest hurricane, Maria, if so thank goodness for HOTC!
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11/9/2017
14:42 | nithbank: The Board expects to announce the Group's preliminary results for FY17 on 27 September 2017.Buying opportunity ahead of dividend announcement?DYOR
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17/8/2017
07:01 | nithbank: Nw99- there's been quite a bit of nervousness in the retail sector recently, but the price drop here has been overdone. The recent trading update showed a 12% revenue increase and a bumper dividend will soon be introduced for the first time. It's a quality company, great product and brand. AIMHO.
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17/8/2017
06:10 | alfie4048: Explain low...in terms of likely profit and dividend yield. Etc etc..
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17/1/2017
08:07 | tjbird: CAKE left on half the rating of HOTC well behind
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PLUS1
