H&T Group, the UK’s biggest pawnbroker, today announced a £1.3 million rise in profits for the first six months of 2008 from sales of unredeemed pledges and scrap.

Pre-tax profit rose from £3.3 million to £4.6 million in the first six months of 2008.

H&T said the credit crunch has also made it more wary about offering unsecured loans to new customers.

Laurent Genthialon, finance director of H&T, told Times Online: “We have trained our staff to price and sell this jewellery better, and it is generally cheaper than on the rest of the high street. We also sell a small amount of new jewellery.”

Meanwhile H&T’s scrap business is taking advantage of the high price of gold, and it plans to enter into a gold forward-selling contract for 2009 and 2010.

The group said that a downturn in its retail trade would be partially offset by its ability to scrap retail stock at a profit.

H&T has raised its interim dividend from 1.6p to 2p per share. Turnover rose from £17.3 million to £24.2 million as gross profit in its pawnbroking business increased by 35.8 per cent over the same period last year.

Ben Archer, analyst at Charles Stanley, said that the results were better than expected, describing them as “excellent”.

The shares were steady at 181p.

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