11th Dec 2018 11:42
LONDON (Alliance News) - Driver Group PLC more than doubled its annual profit, the engineering services company said Tuesday, as it returned to paying a dividend.
For the financial year ended September 30, the company's pretax profit increased to GBP2.7 million from GBP1.2 million the year before on a 4.0% revenue increase to GBP62.6 million from GBP60.2 million.
Driver Group declared a dividend for the year of 0.5 pence, after not paying one the previous two years.
"The transformative turnaround in Driver Group's fortunes reflects a job carefully judged and executed by its management team and staff. The result of this has been to return significant value to our shareholders and to deliver expert, sustainable and truly world-class professional service to our clients," said Chief Executive Officer Gordon Wilkinson.
The company did not book any exceptional charges in the period compared to GBP1.1 million the year before relating to restructuring costs.
Driver Group said it "performed well" in all regions. Revenue from its European and Americas operations increased 10% in the period to GBP28.8 million, with profit up 30% to GBP3.0 million.
The company reported revenue growth of 32% in the Asia Pacific region to GBP11.0 million and doubling its profit to GBP1.0 million.
Driver Group's Middle East operations were driven by "strong performances" from Kuwait and Qatar. The region's revenue decreased 9% to GBP22.9 million but managed an 11% rise in profit to GBP2.1 million, due to "careful" cost management.
The company's net cash at the end of the period was GBP6.9 million, from GBP200,000 debt the year before.
Non-Executive Chairman Steven Norris added: "The start of the current financial year has shown a continuation of the positive trading and improvements that we enjoyed during last year."
"I have always stressed that in a professional services business like ours, it is notoriously difficult to predict activity levels, but your board will continue to monitor costs and margins to ensure that the company deals appropriately with the fluctuations in activity that are an inevitable feature of our business", Norris continued.
Shares in Driver Group were up 0.6% Tuesday at 79.00 pence each.
Related Shares:
DRV.L