THE managing director of East Anglia-based discount shops firm QD said it was eyeing acquisition opportunities after seeing its “best Christmas ever”.

The company, which has 38 shops across the country operating under the QD, Buyright, Lathams and Cherry Lane Garden Centre brands - including a store in Saffron Walden’s High Street - said its like-for-like sales were up 5.66 per cent over the festive period..

Despite difficult trading conditions in the High Street, the firm said it had seen an “overall improvement in profitability and margin over the critical Christmas 2011 trading period”.

The Norwich-based company’s network of stores extends as far as Doncaster in the north and Wrexham to the west.

Group managing director, Justin Farrington Smith said: “We have just experienced our best ever Christmas trading with like-for-like sales for the period up by 5.66 per cent, and with overall improvement in profit and margin.

Our new store and garden centre in Braintree traded well and our first ever pop-up store trialled successfully enough to suggest the concept can be taken forward in the forthcoming year.”

QD’s expansion was slowed during 2011 by a series of teething issues with IT implementation, but Mr Farrington-Smith said said: “We are over the worst of these now.”

“We are currently evaluating a number of acquisition opportunities and are always keen to hear from interested parties with suitable sites for our purposes.”