Hotel Chocolat plans AIM listing

High-end chocolatier Hotel Chocolat revealed on Wednesday it was mulling a float, in a bid to raise money to expand its brand further in the UK and online, as well as its production facility in Oxfordshire.

The founders, Angus Thirlwell and Peter Harris, plan a £50m AIM placing by the end of June. Such an exercise would value the company at £150m, raise £10m for the company, and net the founders - who each own half of the company at present - £20m each.

Hotel Chocolat had more than 80 stores in the UK and three in Denmark, as well as selling its wares online. It was founded in 1993, and had a cocoa plantation and attached luxury hotel on St Lucia.

The plantation and hotel was currently a separate company with the same ownership as the main organisation, but would be acquired by the group prior to listing.

“Hotel Chocolat is built on our core values of authenticity, originality and ethical trading," said chief executive Thirlwell.

"We are very excited at the prospect of listing as it is the next logical step in our growth plans and will enable us to accelerate the many initiatives that we have in place, in particular additional investment in our British chocolate manufacturing, in new stores and in our digital offering.”

It was reported the company had sales of £81.1m at last report, with an underlying pre-tax profit of £7.9m.

Until now, the firm had avoided conventional ways of raising funds, instead selling so-called chocolate bonds to customers and private retail investors. Interest on the bonds was paid in chocolate, rather than cash.