20th Jul 2018 09:55
LONDON (Alliance News) - Industrial products maker 600 Group PLC reintroduced its dividend Friday after full year revenue grew significantly and despite profit dipping on absence of exceptional gains.
For the year ended March 31, pretax profit fell 4.2% to USD3.9 million from USD4.0 million the year prior. This was despite revenue rising 12% to USD66.0 million from USD58.8 million the year before.
600 has begun reporting results in US dollars as opposed to sterling as around two-thirds of the company's revenue is generated in the greenback.
Profit performance was hurt by a fall in one-off gains during the period to USD817,000 from USD1.4 million the year prior. This was after the pensions credits and property sales of the prior year were not repeated, partially offset by the USD2.0 million profit on the sale of ProPhotonix Ltd in its most recent year.
In August 2017, 600 sold its entire 26% stake in LED systems maker ProPhotonix for GBP1.5 million.
Underlying pretax profit - excluding one-off items - rose 15% to USD3.0 million from USD2.7 million the year prior.
"This has been a very successful year for the company," 600 Executive Chairman Paul Dupree said. "Throughout the year we have been working with the pension trustee to negotiate the possible buy out of the group pension scheme, and I'm delighted to report that we have now achieved this. The consequences to the group are significant as we are released from the financial and regulatory constraints related to the scheme, and will be able to use the net proceeds to reduce group debt."
"The efforts of the last few years can be seen across all our divisions resulting in double-digit growth in both revenues and earnings (before special items)," Dupree added. "Looking forward, we expect to improve even further as we achieve cost savings in our UK operations and begin to see the benefits of the improved range of machines and engineering solutions being developed throughout the group."
600 proposed a maiden dividend of 0.5 pence per share.
"Financially, we are more robust because of the steps we took last year to raise additional working capital and realise our investment in ProPhotonix," Dupree explained. "We go into this new financial year with great confidence and I am delighted that this has given us the opportunity to reinstate paying a dividend to shareholders for the first time in many years."
Shares in 600 were 3.9% higher at 17.14 pence on Friday.
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