20th Nov 2018 09:42
LONDON (Alliance News) - AVEVA Group PLC said on Tuesday it swung to an interim loss on amortisation costs, but its Schneider Electric combination boosted adjusted profit.
AVEVA and Schneider Electric in September 2017 reached an agreement to combine AVEVA with Schneider's industrial software businesses. The combination, which was agreed after two previous failed attempts, saw Schneider Electric contribute software assets to AVEVA and make a GBP550 million cash payment to AVEVA shareholders in exchange for a 60% shareholding in the combined company.
On a combined, pro-forma basis, revenue for the six months to September 30 rose 11% to GBP343.0 million. Adjusted pretax profit climbed 54% to GBP60.5 million.
On a statutory basis, revenue jumped 56% to GBP336.5 million, though AVEVA swung to a pretax loss of GBP5.5 million from a GBP7.8 million profit a year ago, largely due to the amortisation of intangible assets related to the tie-up.
AVEVA proposed an interim dividend of 14.0 pence, having not paid an interim dividend a year ago due to a GBP10.15 per share cash return to shareholders.
Chief Executive Officer Craig Hayman said: "AVEVA delivered a good performance in the first half of the financial year. Sales execution was strong, integration is on-track and the results represent a good base to build on in the second half. We remain confident in the outlook and are making progress towards our medium term targets of delivering revenue growth at least in-line with the industrial software market."
AVEVA said it has made a good start to the year, though highlighted that the comparative period in the fourth quarter included the benefit of a large multi-year contract extension with a key customer. The FTSE 250 constituent said the "solid" first-half results underpin the board's confidence in its full-year expectations.
Shares in AVEVA were up 3.7% at 2,782.00 pence on Tuesday.
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