In addition to
pawnbroking and gold buying, the company sells high-quality new and pre-owned gold and silver jewellery in its stores, as well as offering a range of other financial services including pay day advances and Speedloans.
Despite the difficulties faced by the North-east firm, directors said it was well placed to capitalise on opportunities arising from the rationalisation of the
pawnbroking market.
Five years later it acquired the Ramsdens business from its franchisor, quickly beginning a rapid expansion into the
pawnbroking industry across Teesside.
H&T said profits for 2010 should exceed the upper end of market expectations of pounds 26m after consumers increasingly turned to its
pawnbroking and Gold Bar jewellery buying outlets.
'
Pawnbroking suffers from an old image,' said John Nichols, managing director of Harvey and Thompson, a national chain with branches in Birmingham, Walsall, Dudley and Coventry.
The other 11 continue to operate in areas such as
pawnbroking or debt collection.
PAWNBROKING businesses have expanded in the wake of bank branch closures across Yorkshire, according to a report.
Gold prices have surged above pounds 600 an ounce this year, boosting scrap prices and leading to a 30 per cent jump in revenues from the main
pawnbroking business.
"I think, by and large, the stigma has disappeared," says Celia Flavell, manager of the Northfield branch of Albemarle & Bond, a national
pawnbroking chain.
MIDDLESBROUGH
pawnbroking firm Ramsdens has has become the first tenant of a new office redevelopment in central Middlesbrough.
The business has grown from a modest cheque-cashing business in 1950 into the UK's biggest independent
pawnbroking firm.
The company, which offers payday loans and gold-buying as well as traditional
pawnbroking, said that it expected its profits for this year to be "above the top end of current market expectations" of around pounds 20million.
