Chocolate stocks fly

Hotel Chocolat, the chocolate maker inspired by David Bowie, has gone public – and the shares are a buy, says Alex Williams.

It was a "sweet" day for investors in London, says City AM. Luxury chocolate maker Hotel Chocolat has raised £55m in an initial public offering (IPO), with its shares jumping by nearly a third on its first day of trading.The deal was timed to fit into the "chocolate calendar", says co-founder Angus Thirlwell coming just after Easter, but leaving a few months to prepare for Christmas.

The UK chocolate market is massive, estimated at $6.4bn, but investors have been starved of chocolate stocks. Thorntons was bought last year by Italy's Ferrero Rocher, while Cadbury was swallowed by Kraft in 2010. Hotel Chocolat already outsells Thorntons, with more than 80 shops in the UK, but keeps its products off supermarket shelves, to preserve their cachet.

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