Card Factory PLC reported Tuesday a swing to a loss for the first half of fiscal 2021 and said it doesn’t expect to pay dividends for the year.
The card-and-gift retailer posted a pretax loss of 22.0 million pounds ($28.2 million) for the six months ended July 31, compared with a profit of GBP24.3 million in the year-earlier period.
Revenue plummeted to GBP100.5 million, from GBP195.6 million reported the prior year.
The board declared no interim dividend for the period in order to retain sufficient resources amid the pandemic. “We do not expect to pay any dividends in relation to fiscal 2021,” the company said, adding it looks at resuming dividend payouts in the medium term.
The retailer said trading has been improving since period-end, with like-for-like sales down 6.9% year-on-year during the four weeks ended Sept. 20.
