The new owner of Clintons has admitted the high street chain is in a “worse state than expected” and does not forecast a return to profit until December 2025.
Cardzone Group trading director James Taylor told Retail Gazette: “We weren’t optimistic as to what we would find or the condition the business would be in, but we underestimated the task to turn it around.”
The greetings card specialist snapped up Clintons back in March, which saw its remaining 163 stores join Cardzone’s portfolio of 175 shops across the UK.
Clintons was in the process of shutting 38 of its stores in a bid to avoid insolvency after it racked up £5.4m in pre-tax losses as sales plunged 25% to £96.5m in the year to 27 May 2023.
Taylor admitted the retailer, which had 1,000 stores nationwide at its peak, was in a “worse position than what we’d anticipated” and “there’s a lot of work cut out and a lot to sort”.
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However, he added: “One thing I can say is that we’re very confident that we can turn this around, but it needs to be run quite differently to how Clintons was running the business.”
Taylor expects that consolidating the two businesses is “going to mean some pain this year”, including closing several Clintons stores in the coming months “whilst we get the ship turned around”.
“The problem is that some of the Clinton stores are way too big for modern times on the high street so it’s downsizing and finding something more suitable,” he said.
Taylor anticipates another “challenging” golden quarter for Clintons this year as Cardzone honours the 2024 Christmas orders the chain placed before the acquisition.
As such, he does not expect the high street chain to turn a profit until “post Christmas 2025 when hopefully we’ll have really traded well across that full year”.
Cardzone has around 175 stores across the UK, the bulk of which trade as Cardzone shops, however, it also operates Hallmark, Yankee Candle, Mooch, Paper Kisses and Card Centre.
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