Business Overview
H&T Group was founded in London in 1897 as Harvey & Thompson. In 1992, when it had 27 stores, H&T was acquired by Cash America Inc. Following this change of ownership H&T continued to grow both in terms of number of stores and range of products and services offered.
Under the Cash America ownership, H&T began providing cheque cashing and unsecured loan services. In 2001 the Company embarked on a programme to improve its retail offering, investing in extensive refurbishment and rebranding of its stores to make them more appealing from a retail perspective.
In September 2004, a management team led by John Nichols and backed by funds managed by Rutland Partners undertook a management buy-out of the H&T business. Since then, the Company has added to the depth of the management team, appointing a new Finance Director and Operations Director, and successfully implementing a number of strategies to improve the performance of its business, including:
- expansion of geographical footprint: H&T has expanded to over 250 stores across the UK and continues to develop its store estate in under-served areas of which there are still a considerable number in the UK;
- introduction of new financial products services that have served to expand the appeal of the brand and widen the customer base
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May 2006 |
May 2007 |
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H&T completed its admission to AIM with a placing price of £1.72 and market capitalisation of approximately £54m AIM Admission Document May 2006 |
H&T successfully placed another 3.6million shares on AIM raising an additional £7m to fund the growth of the company’s retail estate |
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March 2008 |
March 2009 |
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Through new build and acquisition, H&T grows its estate to 93 stores |
The company had 106 stores nationwide |
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October 2010 |
January 2012 |
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H&T named employer of the year by the National Pawnbroking Association (NPA) |
H&T has over 160 stores and 50 Gold Bars nationwide |
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October 2012 |
December 2012 |
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Awarded Investors in People Gold. Won the NPA Employer of the Year and Community Contribution awards. |
Store estate of 186 stores and 24 Goldbar units |
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January 2013 |
March 2013 |
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Roll out of the new BuyBack product into H&T stores |
Roll out of the Foreign Exchange product in to all stores |
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September 2013 |
October 2013 |
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New Personal Loans product launched in all stores |
Two H&T employees won the NPA Rising Star and Employee of the Year awards |
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December 2013 |
June 2014 |
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Store estate of 194 stores |
Roll out of the new retail store branding concept and unique est1897 retail jewellery store concept |
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October 2014 |
February 2015 |
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H&T won NPA Store of the Year, Community Contribution and Rising Stars awards |
Expansion of the retail proposition when the online shop is launched |
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March 2015 |
July 2019 |
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Launch of online pawnbroking capability |
Acquisition of 65 trading stores and a further 29 pledgebooks from The Money Shop. |
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September 2019 |
October 2020 |
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Acquisition of a 113 pledgebooks from Albemarle & Bond from 7th October 2019. |
Following the retirement of John Nichols. Gillespie joined H&T in September 2020 as an executive director, as part of a planned succession for Nichols. |
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November 2020 |
November 2021 |
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PKF replaces Deloitte LLP as the Company Auditors |
Di Giddy joins the Group and Chief Finance Officer from 1st November 2021. |
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January 2022 |
July 2022 |
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Shore Capital appointed as sole broker |
Acquisition of Swiss Time Services |
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September 2022 |
July 2023 |
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Successfully raised gross proceeds of £16.9m pursuant to the Placing and Retail Offer. |
Consumer Duty |
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July 2023 |
May 2023 |
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Our retail website EST1897 was branded in-line with H&T on the same domain. For the first time, H&T has an all-in-one website, with access to all services under handt.co.uk |
With the business expanding rapidly, there was no longer enough room to hold our team at just one distribution site. A secondary site was opened for the office members of the JC to move to |
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November 2023 |
February 2024 |
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Successful funding agreement with Allica Bank in the form of a funding facility of £10m |
Acquisition of Maxcroft pledgebook to the value of £6.1m |
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February 2024 |
May 2024 |
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Additional funding support from Pricoa Private Capital with a facility £25m. |
Appoint of joint broker – Canaccord Genuity Limited to work alongside the company’s Nominated Advisor Shore Capital |