26th Feb 2015 07:23
LONDON (Alliance News) - Capita PLC Thursday reported a strong increase in profit and revenue for 2014, driven by new contract wins and acquisitions, and said it had got off to an "excellent start in 2015, with new contract wins almost double the level they were this time last year.
The outsourcing company reported a pretax profit of GBP292.4 million for 2014, up from GBP215.0 million in 2013, as revenue rose to GBP4.38 billion, from GBP3.90 billion. Its closely-watched pretax profit excluding exceptional items rose 13% to GBP535.7 million, from GBP475.0 million.
It raised its total dividend for the year by 10% to 29.2 pence, from 26.5p in 2013.
Underlying operating cash conversion rose to 112%, from 106% in 2013, and its underlying free cash flow was up 18% to GBP368 million, from GBP312 million. Its post-tax return on capital employed fell to GBP14.8%, down from 15.5%.
It said it has so far secured GBP1.1 billion of contracts in 2015, up from GBP588 million at this stage in 2014, and its bid pipeline is up to GBP5.1 billion, from GBP4.1 billion in November. Of that 53% is private sector work and 47% is in the public sector.
It said it had "good visbility" for low double-digit revenue growth for 2015 as a whole.
"We have good visibility of strong revenue growth in 2015, which will be driven by the conversion of our bid pipeline, acquisitions and the full benefit from last year's contract wins and acquisitions. We have significant scope to increase penetration of our large and growing addressable market, supported by a number of structural factors such as fiscal pressure, digitisation, regulation and demographics and our own competitive advantages," Chief Executive Andy Parker said in a statement.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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