6th Nov 2013 08:38
LONDON (Alliance News) - Credit checking and information company Experian PLC Wednesday said it swung to a profit in the first half of the year as revenues rose and it increased its presence in the US healthcare payments market with the USD850 million cash acquisition of Passport Health Communications Inc.
The company entered the US healthcare payments market five years ago, but the acquisition will significantly boost its presence in the market. The business provides data and analytics packages to hospitals and medical centres, allowing them to automate billings.
Experian reported a net profit of USD336 million for the six months to the end of September, compared with a loss of USD39 million a year earlier, while its preferred measure of profitability, benchmark pretax profit, rose 2% to USD573 million. Revenues rose to USD2.34 billion, from USD2.29 billion, with organic revenues up in all regions and up 6% in total at constant currencies.
It raised its interim dividend 7% to 11.5 cents a share.
The company said it was continuing to deliver solid growth in North America, while it said it is seeing a general improvement across its UK and Ireland business. In Latin America, it said it had performed well thanks to the introduction of new services, even though credit growth is slowing in Brazil.
It has been restructuring its European operations and said it has also now moved onto Asia Pacific, where it has installed a new leadership team to try and reverse widening losses.
"For the second half, we expect organic revenue growth to be in a similar range as in the first half, and for the full year, we continue to expect modest margin improvement at constant currency and to convert at least 90% of EBIT into operating cash," Chief Executive Don Robert said in a statement.
Still, the company's shares were down 6.2% at 1,185.2 pence early Wednesday, the biggest fall on the FTSE 100.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @SteveMcGrath1
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