IG Design makes 'good start' to trading year

Greeting cards company IG Design Group said on Tuesday that it has made "a good start" to the new financial year, with growth seen across both its Americas and international divisions.

IG Design said like-for-like revenues were up 25% year-on-year in the four months ended 31 July, reflecting the group's "ongoing success" with its 'Working with the Winners' strategy.

However, IG did note that it was experiencing "challenging cost headwinds", particularly in relation to sea freight, as well as regional operational disruption relating to the ongoing impact of Covid -19 restrictions on the logistics functions within the company's global supply chain.

However, thanks to "strong sales momentum" and work across the group to mitigate the impact of cost pressures, earnings to date were still said to be in line with expectations.

Looking forward, the AIM-listed group's order book continued to be ahead of the prior year, underpinning a full-year sales outlook ahead of expectations.

Chief executive Paul Fineman said: "Working with the world's winning retailers and e-tailers has helped deliver our double-digit revenue growth for the year to date and underpins our strong forward order book, as we navigate the ongoing impact of Covid-19 across our supply chain.

"Furthermore, while we remain focussed on meeting customer requirements for the current year, we have confidence in our mid-term outlook and continue to implement initiatives that support the execution of our recently announced growth plan."

As of 1110 BST, IG Design shares were down 0.19% to 521.0p.