Card Factory’s (CARD’s) acquisition of a designer and wholesaler of gifts and celebrations essentials in the US, the largest global market, is in line with its strategy of increasing international reach. The acquisition establishes its physical footprint in the market and complements its existing wholesale supply partnership in 1,100 stores. In addition, CARD has provided a reassuring trading update, albeit with the peak Christmas trading period in the next few weeks. Ahead of the trading update on 14 January 2025, we make no changes to our estimates. We had included some benefit from the expected new partnerships in our forecasts. In addition, management has not publicly quantified the effects of the changes to employers’ National Insurance contributions in the recent budget and the National Living Wage increase from April 2025, and the potential mitigations of these. CARD has a track record of offsetting wage and cost inflation through productivity, efficiency and range measures.
