12th May 2015 06:43
LONDON (Alliance News) - Experian PLC Tuesday said earnings in its recently completed financial year were hurt by unwelcome foreign exchange movements and cautioned that it expects earnings to be affected in its current financial year.
In a statement, the information services and credit report company said it made a USD1.01 billion pretax profit in the year ended March 31, compared with USD1.05 billion in the prior year.
Experian said its margins were hurt by the weakening of the Brazilian real and the euro relative to the dollar.
Its closely watched benchmark pretax profit, which excludes charges including those related to amortisation and financing fair value remeasurements, was flat at USD1.23 billion. Benchmark earnings per share was 95.2 US cents against 91.7 cents in the prior year.
Chief Executive Brian Cassin said Experian is "executing well" on its strategic priorities.
"We delivered strong growth across many parts of the business, have made further progress with earnings and are increasing returns to shareholders. We finished the year well, with organic growth improving as we exited the year," Cassin said in a statement.
"We are also executing well on the five strategic priorities we outlined earlier this year. Regionally, we saw particularly good performances from our operations in North America Credit Services, UK and Ireland, Asia Pacific and Brazil where we continue to outperform a weak economy," Cassin said.
The CEO said Experian is looking to achieve mid single-digit organic revenue growth and strong growth in benchmark earnings per share in the medium term.
"In the coming year, we expect organic revenue growth to progress as we focus on our growth initiatives and as we continue to transform North America Consumer Services. While foreign exchange is a headwind, at constant currency we expect margins for the year to be stable and to deliver further progress in Benchmark earnings per share," Cassin said.
Experian increased its full-year dividend by 5% to 39.25 cents per share from
In sterling terms, the dividend was up by 16%.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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