11th Jun 2019 11:22
(Alliance News) - Gift packaging and stationery firm IG Design Group PLC hiked its annual dividend Tuesday after revenue surged despite profit being held back by one-off costs.
For the year ended March, pretax profit narrowed 12% to GBP17.3 million from GBP19.7 million the year prior. This was despite revenue rising 37% to GBP448.4 million from GBP327.5 million the year before.
Profit performance was hurt by a sharp rise in costs. This was primarily due to a surge in one-off costs to GBP13.0 million from GBP2.1 million the year prior.
Underlying pretax profit - excluding exceptional items - widened 39% to GBP30.3 million from GBP21.8 million the year before.
"We have generated sales of more than 750 million units of consumer products across over 50,000 individually designed items," IG Chief Executive Officer Paul Fineman said. "This tremendous level of innovation, together with our ability to manage and leverage considerable scale, has resulted in our business meeting ambitious targets."
"As ever, our eye is on the future and we continue to invest to enhance our competitive advantage," Fineman continued. "We have delivered GBP7.9 million of capital expenditure projects within the year and have additional exciting fast payback investments taking place in 2020. Furthermore, our investment in our team continues at pace with the focus on leveraging scale and driving innovation."
IG proposed a 6.00 pence per share final dividend, up 50% from 4.00p the year prior. For the full year, the dividend rose 42% to 8.50p from 6.00p the year before.
"Supported by an ever strengthening balance sheet, our business remains very well placed to continue to grow both organically and through carefully considered M&A opportunities and we look forward to the future with enthusiasm and optimism", Fineman concluded.
In August 2018, IG acquired US gift packaging products supplier Impact Innovations Inc for GBP56.5 million.
Shares in IG were 0.7% lower at 600.00p in London on Tuesday.
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