Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Ramsdens Holdings PLC annual results presentation. Throughout today's recorded meeting, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time just using the Q&A tab on the right-hand corner of your screen. Simply type your questions and press Send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I'm sure the company will be most grateful for your participation. I'd now like to hand over to the management team, today, Peter, Martin, good afternoon.
Thanks, Mark. Well, welcome everybody. Let's say hopefully we have as many questions as normal. We're quite happy to answer them as we always have been. The picture on the front, that's our Burton store that was opened about 12 months ago. The usual disclaimer, contents page with a typical jewelry window there, segmenting the different jewelry we have on offer, new and secondhand. So who we are. The key thing, bottom right-hand corner, we're diversified. Four income streams, it's a pretty even pie chart. There's obviously gonna be swings from year to year. You can see the numbers there ranging from 21%-29% of gross profit. A map of where we are in the U.K. We're still a very predominantly northern business. We are headquartered on Teesside.
We have a processing center in Middlesbrough and, if you like, an office in Stockton. We have dedicated websites for each service. You can see some of the Trustpilot responses below. We'll talk about, if you like, the four key services, how they work, how we make our money, as we go through this presentation. I think a lot of you are probably familiar with the business. The highlights. Obviously record turnover over GBP 100 million for the first time. Record profit GBP 16.2 million, which is 43% up on last year's GBP 11.4 million. Some of that is gold-enabled, and we'll go back through that one, but it's enabled us to put the dividend up, which just so happens to be 43% up to, in its totality.
We've pulled some of that out as a special dividend. Again, we'll explain why we've done that. Those results were, if you like, slightly ahead of market expectations. Some operational highlights. I'll come back to the websites. Two new stores. We'll talk about new store opening programs. Launched a new in-house international money transfer service. We have been doing it for about seven years, but we now do it on our own. 40,000 currency cards are now in issue. In terms of the outlook, we've had a strong start in Q1. That's in the RNS. You'll have seen that. We've also said we're very happy to say we will exceed GBP 18 million this year in PBT. From yesterday, you can now see Cavendish's research, our new Nomad and broker, on our ramsdensplc.com website.
Our plan is to open 8-12 stores in this financial year. Again, I'll come back into that, but we are on track to do so. We believe underlyingly all of our core income streams are making progress. We're in a really good position, and we've got an established growth strategy, which if you've heard this before is not going to be too much different. Top two graphs show really our record since coming to AIM. Both are very positive. We've always talked about a staircase in profit before tax growth. It's obviously shot up in FY 2025, aided by the gold price increases. Again, as I said, we'll explain that. The dividend growth, again, incremental growth.
In FY 2025, there's a special interim in yellow and a special dividend in blue that's topping that up a little bit as well. Martin will cover the balance sheet in detail, but net assets GBP 62.9 million and a very good class of net assets too. Net cash on the balance sheet, and we're generating a 20% return on equity for FY 2025. Again, our diversified income streams are there just if you like to show you know one of our strengths. Thinking about our strengths, the strong foundations that we have. Financials I'll slightly gloss over. I've talked those. We'll go through them in detail. I have four IT programmers. Our sales ledger CRM system, cash book is all ours. It's a bespoke system. It's perfect for our needs. We think it's market leading.
Staff who use it think it's intuitive. We can develop that ourselves. It's bought and paid for, expensed as we go along with the salaries of the four developers. That's been enablers to develop the websites, to be enablers to launch the IMT service, which again, all that software is all in-house. We have a strong consumer brand. Customers are kind in their Trustpilot feedback. Trusted high street name, which is a big differentiator when we get into currency cards and getting into international payments because there are 170 stores that you can walk into and ask the question which is not the same with some of our competitors. Years of advertising, TV, sports sponsorship have helped develop that brand. We think we've got a great culture in the business.
You know, we're AIM listed, we've got to have strong governance. We're also FCA authorized. We've had that for years, so we've got good governance, a strong ethos, which we'll bring out in the pawnbroking to do the right thing. Low staff turnover for a retailer. We're about 20%, 20-point-something%. That's lower than typical retail, which is 50%-51%. If you go down the country into the south, it's probably 50%-100% turnover a year. We want to keep our staff happy. We pay the real living wages, our minimum pay, and we invest in our people because their efforts are the people who make the difference and generate the results for, you know, the business and the shareholders. Growth strategy, the pictures might have changed, but the strategy hasn't.
Driving growth from our core estate and growing the online presence. Growth from the core estate established stores, in my opinion, all have an opportunity to get better, whether that's more FX, more retail, buying more gold or growing a loan book. I'm not worried whether they're, you know, if they're two years old, they have definitely got opportunities to mature and grow. If they're 20 years old, they've still got opportunity to grow. Had a store that was in my, is it worth it category? I've changed the manager in the last six months, and that store's had an immediate turnaround. Every store in our estate has the ability to improve. The website side of things, we had a legacy website called Ramsdens For Cash. We still have it for its domain authority.
We now have four separate websites for our four key income streams. Why have we done that? Our pawnbroking and our gold buying website are to drive customers to come into store, if you like from a business development. People come to the site, we see that they look at branch locator, and then hopefully they're then following on in store to do a pawnbroking loan or to sell their gold. Our pawnbroking website also facilitates the customer repaying their loans early if they wish to do so. Moving on to foreign currency website, click and collect, home delivery. You can top up your card, and you can ask about and make payment on an international payment should you wish to do so. Jewelry retailing, it's probably the older platform. It's about four years old on that platform.
It's currently getting re-platformed as we speak. Hopefully, we'll launch this month. The reason for that, and the reason that we're doing it is to aid customers searching the product that they may wish to buy. It's a bit clunky in the current way. Hopefully, the new version will be more streamlined, more effective, and lead to more sales. It'll also help the branches because as we said previously, our website is a catalog of stock across the whole of the estate that our stores can tap into. Continuous improvement, absolutely what we're about. I said immature stores will continue to grow. We do look at relocations if it's appropriate, so there'll be a couple this year. On the right-hand side, this is like is outside of the existing estate.
More stores, and I'll come back to that one, or something will crop up. Gemini Pawnbrokers and Jewellers on the Isle of Sheppey. Tony wanted to retire, 71 years old. It was a good acquisition for us. We're very happy to buy that, look after his staff and take the business forward. In terms of the store estate, what we have and what we usually get questions on is, if you like, our model. That's where we're at. Two stores opened in the last or in FY 2025 in Grantham and Burton. We actually closed our Teesside Airport kiosk store, and we merged two stores in the center of Glasgow. We stayed, if you like, neutral, 168 stores and the franchised store.
Why did we take our, if you like, our foot off the gas in terms of expanding the store estate over the last, like, 12 months or in that financial year when we'd averaged about seven and a half stores for the two prior years? Well, there was a change of government. There was a November 2024 budget, and we had no idea what they would do. Having had the budget, and they significantly changed the rules of the game, if you like, with the increases in employers' national insurance by both lowering the threshold and increasing the rate, we thought there might be a bit of a high street bloodbath. That's actually happened, but later than I thought. If you think about the last three, four months, you've got Claire's Poundland, The Works have closed a few, River Island want to close a few.
There are, you know. It's been in the press. There have been several high street closures, hospitality trade, immense impact on them. We took a cautious approach, and in the last 12 months, we, you know, revisited all the stores that we've opened over the last five years. We know we have a really strong model for the high street supported by our websites, so we're happy to grow again. We've said that we will grow eight to 12 stores in this financial year and beyond. We've already opened in Wakefield. I've got four stores that will open prior to, like, end of February, first week in March. We're in a good place to deliver eight to 12 new stores in this financial year.
We've got a really good, strong pipeline of good deals of stores that are in the right locations next to retailers that I think will be around the next 12 months. You know, quite discerning about what we do, and we have plenty of opportunities to grow the estate. In terms of the financials, about GBP 500,000 for a new store, GBP 225,000 is probably sunk cost in the CapEx, and making it secure, and putting the [SaaS] in, and all the things that we do in a new store. About GBP 275,000 of working capital, which is jewelry or cash and growing a loan book.
We share with you an indicative model of a first year loss, which is really pre-opening expenses of rent before, you know, while we're shop fitting, staff recruited before we're trading, and it's that type of operation that creates the loss. Really, the first year is pretty neutral thereafter. We're building the income streams and profit in years two, three, and four. That is the hurdle to open a store. If we don't believe we can't deliver a 20% return on capital from a new store, we don't open it. We'll look somewhere else. That's our new stores and our strategy to grow the business. I'll hand over to Martin, who will run through the financials in more detail.
Thanks, Peter. As Peter said, the year has been a very, very strong year with record revenue over GBP 100 million for the first time. Revenue up 22%. Gold buying and retail have been a big part of that step forward. We'll talk about the income streams individually shortly. Gross profit margins within each product is relatively consistent. You can see that most of that 18% growth in gross profit is very similar to that top line growth in revenue. The number of stores in the year, as Peter said, there was two new stores and one merged and one closure. There's a slight increase in admin costs from that extra two stores.
We've had the maturity of all the stores opened in the prior year for the full year, and we've had the increase in people costs, which has been a significant part of the growth in admin expenses. Up to 12% increase in admin expenses, that's about GBP 4.5 million. It's about GBP 3.6 million-3.7 million of that is due to the people cost increasing. That's more people in terms of the newer stores. It's more people in head office supporting that website growth and supporting the jewelry retail processing center, for instance. But it's also, you know, the cost increase of the real living wage and that increase in national insurance costs, which Peter mentioned. The finance costs in the business have reduced in the year by 20%.
It's about half of the finance cost is rental interest cost. It's high for us 16, and it's to do with the rents in the business rather than borrowing costs. The borrowing cost has reduced in the year due to having less debt throughout the year and a lower base rate, and that's contributed to about a GBP 200,000 reduction in overall finance costs. It's a very low finance cost for the size of the business, and we use that RCF that we have very efficiently to borrow money through the summer to effectively fund the extra CapEx that goes into the tills as the volumes increase with travel. Profit before tax is up 43% at GBP 16.2 million. The tax rate, very similar, GBP 4.3 million in tax in the year, very consistent with the profitability.
Profit after tax, GBP 11.9 million, which is GBP 0.37 in terms of basic EPS. We just touch on each individual segment separately and give a bit more color in terms of what's happening and the dynamics within them. Purchase of precious metals, predominantly gold buying. What you can see is revenues of 44%. The volume of gold we purchased in the year is up around 14%. A lot of this growth has come through the higher gold price. We think about the growth in volume, the 14%. You know, some of that actually is coming H2, and we would say that's definitely being contributed through the website. We launched a brand new gold buying website in February 2025, and we've been working to promote that, especially into the second half of the year.
We've seen a lot of traffic to that website and a lot of traffic going on to the branch locator pages. Therefore, we know people have used that website to then go into store and sell us gold. Therefore, the volume increase, some of that is driven by that activity. It's not all driven by gold price increase. The gold price awareness definitely helps build customer volume, but actually the price itself, and it's the fact that people are reminding you in the press that the price is high, the price is high, and people, you know, are nudged to sell more of the gold. Very few people actually understand the absolute gold price in terms of that driving them to take that step. The gross profit 52% up.
You can see here the gold price in terms of nine karat gold. We've set out just how much this has moved in the last year. In FY 2024, the average price was GBP 21. In the last year, in 2025, that price has moved to GBP 28. That's a 34% increase. As we sit here today, it's moved significantly higher again. We've said in the RNS that Q1, the gold buying profit for Q1 has increased a further 50% for that quarter. Gold price today is over GBP 40 a gram in nine karat terms. We're very cautious when we look forward in terms of what that gold price can be. We're obviously not banking on a GBP 40 gold price into the future forever.
Certainly, as the gold price is higher, the amount of profit you make per transaction is higher. That is what's fallen through into FY 2025 and also into Q1 of the new financial year. On to revenue. To retail, sorry. Jewelry retail has been a real success. We've seen 20% increase here in revenue as well. This is actually the headwind of the gold price. The gold price means the input price of jewelry has increased, and it's increased substantially through the year. What we've been able to do is actually manage our pricing to the customer to maintain our margin. We've actually, you can see here the gross margin overall has been very consistent.
It's 37% across the mix of our retail, and we've been able to pass that on and still see growth, very good growth in our overall retail segment. The graph in the bottom left just shows where we've been really with retail on that journey. You know, in the last four years, we've more than doubled our retail. There's a lot of sort of self-help in this income stream. We've put more stock in, we've improved the window displays. You can see the picture on the right there. It's very modular in design now, where we can present the windows in a much more you know structured way and a very consistent way through the network. We put more stock in during the year.
There's about GBP 8 million investment in stock, and that some of that is the cost of the stock is higher, and some of that is obviously more stock and more range to the stores as well. A very strong performance in an environment where discretionary spend has been probably a tough year for a lot of retailers. We're very happy with our progress in jewelry retail. The segment at the bottom just shows how the split of the categories sit within retail. Pre-owned jewelry is about 38%. That's performed exceptionally well in the last 12 months. The growth in pre-owned jewelry is actually 35% in revenue terms. We've seen a very strong step forward in that as people look for value when the overall pricing has increased.
About half of that growth is in pricing and half of it is in volume as well. Of that 35%, you know, it's not all gold price driven. Some of that is volume driven as well. Watch pricing is obviously not affected by the gold price, and we've still seen 13% increase in our premium watch sales. Our new jewelry, which is only up 10%, is probably all in pricing and very little volume difference in the last 12 months. Online is up 14%, so again, strong retail growth online as we still develop that website further. You know, we still think there's a big opportunity in retail as we move forward. On to pawnbroking. Our pawnbroking loan book in the year is up 7%.
A lot of that growth came in H2, came in the second half of the year. Again, we launched the website. It was launched in November. We actually started promoting it more like February, once we got our existing customers who use the website to pay, for their existing loans. Once we made sure that worked and we got that comfort with how that new website worked, we started to try and promote it more widely. Again, we see good customer traffic to the website. We see a lot of people using the branch to pay their purchases. We do get inquiries about lending direct through the website, but a lot of people, again, are using the website as a signpost to go into store. We've seen the lending pick up in H2.
Again, we've seen in Q1 significant growth again in the loan book. The loan book at the year-end there is GBP 11.4 million. As we said in the RNS, the loan book at the end of December is GBP 12.8 million. It's stepped forward again into Q1 of the new year. We are lending slightly more to a customer, but we're not lending anywhere near the increase in the gold price. The gold price, as we've just seen, is significantly higher than it was. It's up probably 50% over the last year. We've, you know, lent probably 10% more on average to our customers on a pure gold basis. LTV or loan-to-value is being very, very conservative, and it's a lot lower than it would be in long run averages.
There's an opportunity for gold price, if it's high, to lend more to our customers, and we see that continued growth, we think, into the next 12 months as the gold price, if it stays higher than it's been for the last 12 months, we can lend more across that. We've actually seen repayments improve on pawnbroking, so our repayment levels for customers, despite maybe a cost of living struggle, people have typically paid us back a bit quicker and paid us back slightly more than historic norms, which has been partly why the yield in the loan book is slightly higher than it was a year ago. We've worked hard with our older loans, people who've lent for more than the initial term of six months.
Anyone who's lent for more than 12 months, we actually offer a reduced interest rate, and we equate more emphasis in our conversations and help with those customers to actually pay down more of their capital. We've seen the aged lending actually reduce, which is why that also helps the yield on the loan book. It actually takes away some of the loan book growth in the short term, but actually it will give us, you know, strong customer outcomes in the long term and keep those customers into the future. They get their goods back quicker, and they can borrow again in the future. Pawnbroking is in a very, very good place. We've seen good incremental growth. We've not followed the gold price up and lent significantly more than we have historically.
We think the website has started to make a difference, and we think that still is a huge opportunity to grow pawnbroking into the future. On to currency. Overall, our total currency exchange, you can see in the table there at the top, is 1% up, so it's slightly higher than it was the year before. What we've seen there is the average transaction is actually slightly down, so people have exchanged slightly less. It's about 2% down. Anecdotally, there's probably two reasons for that. Either they've, you know, they've taken less money abroad with them because they've had less to take. They've maybe traveled for a shorter period.
I think some travel companies have said the average, you know, people who've maybe substituted a 10-day holiday for a seven-day holiday to keep the cost of travel down, given how expensive it's been in the last 12 months. We've seen slightly lower values. We served a very similar number of customers, but what we've seen is some substitution effectively from higher value, higher margin product into lower margin products. More people have used our click and collect service online, so you buy in advance. Typically, that's a slightly lower rate, and more people have used the currency card, which again, is at a slightly lower margin because of the cost to supply the card. You can see gross profit is slightly down at 3%, but we still are serving a very similar number of customers, maybe slightly more.
Those customers are then very, very much understand the wider business and they are using us for gold buying and they're using us for retail and the profitability of our customers is still very, very strong. The currency card has been, it's stepped forward again. We had 20,000 a year ago, we got 40,000 customers using that card. As that layers in, that again offers long-term customer capture, and that customer uses that card multiple times while they're traveling. We've also had a slight reduction in the purchasing back of currency. Because the average transaction is lower, people then have left with less money and they sell less back. You can see that the purchase of currency down about 5%.
Again, that's contributed to the mix of the overall gross profit being slightly down. Cash flow statement. As Peter said, when we open a store, you know, the CapEx, the cash goes in at the start. The business then is very, very cash generative. So when we have options in how we invest that cash, usually we open, you know, probably on average seven or eight stores a year, which is a big use of cash. Actually, in the year we've not done that, we've only opened two. So we've had more cash available to invest in inventory. I think the inventory has worked. You know, we've improved the retail performance, and therefore we've put more of that cash to work into inventory. We've had loan book growth, which is the growth in the trade and receivables.
Cash generation, the strength of that gives us the options to invest in the period. The income tax is probably a bit strange in that we've had six quarterly payments for tax. Usually, you just have four. We've transitioned from quarterly in arrears to quarterly in the year. There's about GBP 2 million there, one-off cash out the door for tax. That will normalize as we move into the new year. The dividend in the year, we've declared a GBP 0.16 dividend overall. We're very conscious of the gold buying step forward that we've achieved with the gold price, and therefore we've called out GBP 0.025 of that as a special dividend. We still give an underlying dividend increase of over 20%.
Overall, the dividend increase of 43% reflects a very similar payout to last year, which is around about 43% of EPS. Our policy on dividend is very, you know, very consistent. It's broadly up to half of that profit out as a dividend and leave the half to grow the business. We are very conscious of a high gold price, and that's why we've structured the dividend in this way, particularly in this year. As Peter alluded to, we've got a very, very strong balance sheet. You know, we get asked a lot about our inventories, especially the gold jewelry stock we hold. That, you know, it's recorded in the balance sheet at cost. We don't revalue that to the gold price, for instance. It's around about GBP 9 million of watch inventory we hold.
The rest of that is typically gold stock. The pre-owned portion of that is held at below its intrinsic value. Trade receivables is the pawnbroking lending plus the interest associated with that. Again, that collateral that supports that is a very, very strong coverage and therefore again, that's a very, very strong asset class. The cash in the balance sheet of GBP 15 million does include the currency in the till. It's around GBP 9 million of FX. What happens there is the swing in FX through the year is we have about GBP 4 million-GBP 5 million of FX in the till in the winter, and it jumps up to around GBP 10 million. In the summer, that GBP 5 million of cash we use from our RCF. There's also around GBP 3 million or GBP 4 million of sterling cash that you need to cover that cycle as well.
'Cause we sell around about GBP 3 million of currency per day in the summer, and therefore, as people pay us that money each day, it takes a day, a day and a half to get that back through the cycle into the bank. It's a very, very efficient balance sheet. We have no structural debt on the balance sheet. Our RCF effectively is repaid in the winter. Today, we have zero drawn on the RCF, which is why we have a very low finance cost as a business.
Okay. Thanks, Martin. In summary, you know, we set off in FY 2025. We have steadily beat the expectations at the start of that year and have delivered 43% growth in PBT. FY 2026 has started strongly, and we have said that we'll make over GBP 18 million, so it's another good start into the current year. The two graphs you've seen before earlier in the presentation are just really reiterating our track record on AIM, and the intention is to grow a more profitable business that has a very strong balance sheet and is able to reward shareholders. Strategy hasn't changed. We've had a following wind with the gold price, but you know, we're taking advantage of that. Underlyingly, the trade, you know, the business is in a really good place.
Happy with the progress that we've made since last year and made a little bit more progress in the gold buying, which is a bit more transactional, but rewarded dividends with that. That's the presentation. Thanks, Mark.
That's great. Thank you very much indeed to you both. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just using the Q&A tab situated on the right-hand corner of the screen. Just while the guys take a couple of moments to review your questions submitted already, I'd just like to remind you a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your Investor Meet Company dashboard. Peter Martin, you've received a number of questions from investors, so thank you, firstly to everybody for your engagement this afternoon. If I may, just hand back to you to just navigate us through that Q&A, and I'll pick up from you at the end.
All right. Thanks, Mark. Excuse me leaning forward, you know, the eyesight's getting going as I get older. So question one: Can you explain the extent to which your earnings vary depending upon the price of gold and silver? Well, obviously, I'll not talk about the gold going up any further, but lots of people think that will happen. Let's concentrate on, if you like, the gold going backwards. If I take pawnbroking, conservatively lent, if the gold price fell back 30%, 33%, our lending would still be in long-run averages. So I don't think there's much impact into the pawnbroking segment. If the gold price is lower and we get less for the scrapping, we're probably giving less surpluses back to consumers. So it's probably no detriment to ourselves.
Obviously, consumers who are currently getting surpluses higher than they've had before may lose out a little bit. Into retail, I think again, where cost bases have changed for jewelry retailers, I think there'd be a reluctance if they can start buying their products at a lower price, whether they just take advantage of that. We've talked about, if you like, a special dividend, and is that an indicator to, if you like, the variety or the variability of the gold price? It might be, but you know what? If the gold price is lower, will retail be in a better place because the world's in a better place? Will foreign currency be in a better place because foreign currency is in a better place? I, it isn't just a simple answer.
Also, you know, we talked through the gold buying, we have options. If we buy a weight of gold, while we might take advantage of the gold price and scrap it straight away and get its intrinsic value, the gold price is lower, why don't we take a year, because we haven't got any structural debt, and repay it through, you know, retail it through our stores and earn more margins? It isn't a linear question. As for silver, nah, it's so low volume, it doesn't cause any movement on the Richter scale. It is my understanding Ramsdens Holdings PLC intended to open several new branches every year, but recently the board changed its mind about this policy. Is there any particular reason why the company has had a change of mind?
Well, I think it was just a pause, not a change, and I explained it about the government policy and what I thought would happen to the retail landscape happened probably slower than I thought it would have done. Stephen has asked: Has the lack of opening branches and the relevant pre-opening costs helped profitability in the year? Not really. I mean, you know, we've said that's our model. I'm trying to make sure that our new stores make a profit as soon as they possibly can, and Grantham and Burton are both making profit in year one. Stephen again: Any thoughts about leaving AIM? In which way? No, we haven't really thoughts about leaving AIM. That's the market we're on. Other people might have, but no, we're plowing on for our existing investors.
Where do you expect to open the new branches, please? Well, I can tell you that we opened in Wakefield. I can tell you that I've got a shop- in- shop fit in Hull Center. I can tell you I've got a shop- in- shop fit in Newark. In terms of the others, obviously confidential for commercial reasons. It's across the U.K. There'll be some in the northwest, there'll be some in the southeast. Operationally, I don't want to overload any of my area managers with too many new stores. So we spread the new stores across the estate, and we have opportunities still to do that and ripple the estate. By that, I can put trained staff in the store. It performs better from the outset. So that's the structure. That's what we're following.
Due to the continued strength of precious metals, is there an opportunity for Ramsdens to create a coin-focused bullion website to buy, sell, similar to Atkinsons or Chards? The big store estate would no doubt lend itself to a click and collect, not just direct to the customer. It actually probably conflicts with some of the margins that we enjoy in our gold buying segment. It's something that we've picked up and put down, but I'm not seeing it on the short-term horizon. David's been a shareholder for a bit now. Thank you, David. I'm very pleased with the cautious steady growth. Well done. Well, thank you very much. Gary: Earnings are very tied to the gold price. If the gold prices fall back to $2000, level it traded at two years ago, what would the impact be on earnings?
Would they fall back to 2023 levels? All the reports I read, Gary, is $2,000 is not on anybody's horizon in the near term. We'd react and move the business, but I don't think that our, you know, some of our earnings are not necessarily tied to the gold price, as I've explained. What do you see as the maximum number of stores nationwide? I don't think there is a maximum. I was explaining earlier to some city investors, we have a town in Scotland, population's about 9,500. That store makes us GBP 180,000 profit. I think there's plenty of opportunities for us to go at across the U.K. You know, we've only got 170 stores.
We could double the estate. You know, quite easily really, over time because we're funding that without structural debt through our own cash generation. David, don't leave AIM, please. Okay. Paul, congratulations on the fabulous results. Regarding watches, the potential for watches specifically seems huge. Any plans to build up inventory and take on established pre-owned players through the website? Well, we do. Our watch retailing is about GBP 20 million and growing. You know, it grew 13% in the last twelve months, and we very much do wish to drive that forward. It's been a good business for us. The hardest part of some of the watches is repairing them quick enough if we buy...
You know, if we buy somebody's unwanted watch 'cause they're trading up, whatever the reason may be, we often have to refurbish it, regulate it, service it, and get it ready, and that's not a quick process. I'm obviously working on that as well to try and improve our efficiency with some of our watches. Simon: Cavendish FY 2027 forecast show a decline in profitability between 2026 and 2027. What key assumptions are driving that reduction? Is it expected gold price softness? I don't know whether it's expected gold price softness, but I wouldn't have thought anybody listening is expecting me to having a conversation with Cavendish saying, I expect what I expect the gold price to be nine months or 12 months or 18 months from now.
You know, we were happy with our 2027 projections coming out of, you know, mid-points of if you like 2025, and it's just too far into the future. It's a very volatile world. There's, you know, the predictions in 2027 are very, you know. On the current gold price of where it is today, you know, $4,600 an ounce, it, they're probably seen as conservative. Sven: Perhaps a left field question, but will the acquisition of H&T during 2025 affect the strategy for Ramsdens in any way? So far, no. They're doing what they're doing. You know, it's a large business. It's been a successful business. I know that they're growing their store incrementally and, yeah, they, you know, it. I'll leave them to manage their business and take it forward.
I'm concentrating on what we can control and how we can grow our profitability, how we can grow our dividend, how we can strengthen our balance sheet. It's Ramsdens I'm mainly interested, but obviously I do watch what they're doing. I seem to have rattled through those quite-
Yeah.
Hopefully.
You've certainly done a good job there. Thank you very much indeed. Of course, if any other questions do make themselves available, Peter and Martin, we'll make those available to you post today's meeting. Look, I know investor feedback is particularly important to you both. I'll shortly redirect those on the call to give you their thoughts, their expectations, through feedback. Perhaps if I may just come back to you, Peter, for a couple of closing comments.
I think it's, you know, we've had a very good year. Yes, the gold price has given us a following wind, but, you know, our business is in a really good position to continue to grow and deliver shareholder rewards. You know, that's what we're aiming to do.
That's great. Perfectly clear. Thank you once again. Can I please ask investors not to close this session as we'll now automatically redirect you so that you can provide your feedback in order that management can really better understand your views and expectations? This will only take you a couple of moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be very gratefully appreciated by the company. On behalf of the management team of Ramsdens Holdings PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation and wish you all a good rest of your day. Thank you once again for your time.