PARK GROUP (PKG).

Investors Chronicle, June, 2004

Park has managed to get rid of the two businesses that were holding back group performance. First, it closed down Consus, its call-centre operation, and sold the lease on the building that housed it to Wirral Council. Then, the day before these results, it announced the sale of Link, the design and packing business, to a management buy-in.

That leaves the cash-saving and cash-lending operations, where underlying pre-tax profits increase 29 per cent to GBP5m last year. Much of that growth was provided by the lending operation, which is still building up scale. The loan book rose 82 per cent to GBP24.6m, due to organic additions and an acquisition, although growth in the bad debt charge was more modest - up from GBP2.2m to GBP2.9m. The savings business, which...

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