16th Mar 2016 08:52
LONDON (Alliance News) - Consumer professional services company Fairpoint Group PLC on Wednesday said it swung to a pretax loss in 2015 due to exceptional costs, offsetting a big rise in revenue.
Fairpoint said its pretax loss for the year to the end of December was GBP5.7 million, compared to a GBP3.4 million profit a year earlier. The loss was caused by the group booking GBP16.1 million in exceptional costs, up from GBP5.8 million a year earlier, mainly due to a goodwill charge booked on its individual voluntary arrangement unit within its Debt division.
Stripping out the exceptional costs, pretax profit rose to GBP10.5 million from GBP9.3 million.
Revenue rose even more strongly, to GBP54.1 million from GBP38.3 million, up 41% thanks to a robust performance in its Legal Services arm, which offset weaker conditions for its Debt business.
Fairpoint will pay a final dividend of 4.35 pence per share, up from 4.10p, taking its total dividend up 6.0% to 6.80p from 6.40p.
"2015 was a significant year for Fairpoint as we continued our expansion into the legal services market, reporting strong growth in revenues and adjusted profits and completing the acquisition of Colemans to add market leading expertise in volume personal injury, conveyancing and travel law to the group's existing legal services offering," said Chief Executive Chris Moat.
"Having established a wide range of capabilities in consumer legal services, we expect to continue to pursue acquisition opportunities whilst also developing our organic growth agenda," he added.
Fairpoint shares were down 6.1% to 153.00p.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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