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Feb 26 (Reuters) – Britain’s Card Factory said on Friday it has secured further waivers from its lenders to ward off expected covenant breaches until March-end and it is engaged in a plan to refinance the company.
The greeting card retailer, which last month secured waivers until the end of February, said it expects to reopen most of its stores in April.
Card Factory’s combined credit score, which measures how likely a company is to default in the next year on a scale of 100 (very unlikely) to 1 (highly likely), was “1” as of Friday, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.
Non-essential retailers across the UK have been battered by repeated COVID-19 restrictions and forced to shut shops under the latest lockdown, as Britain struggles to contain surging coronavirus cases and a new variant of the virus.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson set out a phased plan on Monday to end England’s COVID-19 lockdown, offering a “cautious” approach to try to prevent a return to wholesale restrictions that have hobbled the economy.
Card Factory, which has more than 1,000 stores across the UK and Ireland, has seen a jump in online sales during the pandemic but warned of an annual loss last month. (Reporting by Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
