23rd May 2019 09:21
LONDON (Alliance News) - Car retailer Inchcape PLC on Thursday retained its outlook for 2019 and said that it will return GBP100 million to shareholders over the course of the year via a share buyback programme.
Inchcape also said it has sold its Honda and Mitsubishi retail sites in Australia for GBP11 million cash, as part of an effort optimise its Retail business. The disposal is expected to generate a profit for the company.
For the four months to April 30, Inchcape's revenue grew 3% year-on-year to GBP3.1 billion, with both Distribution and Retail businesses delivering 3% growth.
"Distribution, which comprised more than 90% of our profit in 2018, saw good revenue growth across most markets, most notably Asia, where growth was led by Singapore, and Europe," Chief Executive Stefan Bomhard commented.
"Retail's continued strength in Russia over the period, driven by Ignite, was somewhat offset by expected sales weakness in UK and Australia Retail. Encouragingly, and as a consequence of the actions we have taken, profit across these two more challenging Retail markets has been broadly stable year-on-year and we are confident this will be maintained for the rest of the year," Bomhard added.
Inchcape expects both Retail and Distribution business to deliver annual profit in line with guidance. It expects resilient constant currency profit performance, excluding a currency headwind from the Japanese yen.
For the first half of 2019, Inchcape said it expects profit to be hurt by supply constraints, although this is anticipated to normalise in the second half.
Shares in Inchcape were up 2.3% at 570.50 pence each on Thursday morning.
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