Card Factory completes senior debt refinancing

CARD Factory, which made its debut on the London Stock Exchange last month valued at £766m, announced today it has completed the refinancing of its senior banking facilities.

The budget card retailer, founded in Wakefield, said the facility includes a £180m term loan facility and a £20m revolving facility.

“Taking into account the IPO proceeds and transaction costs, the group had net debt on May 20, the date that the company’s shares were admitted to listing, of approximately £160m, representing approximately 2.0x underlying EBITDA for the year ended January 31,” the company said.

Last month, the group said it plans to expand from its current 733 stores up to around 1,200 over the next ten years.

The retailer was founded by husband and wife team Janet and Dean Hoyle in 1997 and was bought by private equity house Charterhouse for £350m in 2010.

Card Factory sold more than 285m cards in the financial year to the end of January 2014 and in that year, the group achieved revenue growth of 9% to £326.9m and underlying EBITDA growth of 9.2% to £80.4m.