Pawnbrokers are still worth buying into

Recessions aren't bad news for everyone. There's one particular recession-proof sector we've been tipping for quite some time now – pawnbroking. And with good reason.

Recessions aren't bad news for everyone. There's one particular recession-proof sector we've been tipping for quite some time now pawnbroking.

And with good reason. Britain's largest pawnbroker, Albemarle & Bond (LSE: ABM), has just reported its full-year results for the year to 30 June. Pre-tax profit jumped to £14.6m, from £9.74m the year before, on sales of £55.5m (up 18%). The final dividend was hiked by 44% on last year to 6.5p a share, giving a total dividend of 8.85p.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.