12th Feb 2015 07:47
LONDON (Alliance News) - Informa PLC Thursday raised its dividend for 2014, as impairment charges offset a rise in revenue, leading it to swing to a pretax loss.
The business media and events company company proposed a final dividend of 12.9 pence, taking its total dividend to 19.3 pence, up from 18.9 pence a year before.
Informa said that, assuming current exchange rates continue, it expects to deliver earnings per share growth in 2015.
Informa posted a pretax loss of GBP31.2 million, swung from a pretax profit of GBP115.4 million, as a rise in revenue to GBP1.14 billion from GBP1.13 billion was offset by exceptional costs of GBP340.8 million, including a GBP219 million non-cash impairment.
Stripping out these exceptional costs, Informa posted a pretax profit of GBP309.6 million, compared to GBP307.3 million.
Revenue growth was driven by a strong performance from the company's Global Exhibitions and Academic Publishing businesses.
The company is undertaking a new strategy which it calls the 'Growth Acceleration Plan'. As part of this plan, it has stopped additional funding to its Chinese pharmaceutical data investment and provided for its outstanding loans, and has taken an impairment against some of its assets it acquired with Datamonitor in 2007.
The company expects to invest a further GBP30 million to GBP40 million in the plan during 2015. This will hit earnings due to increased operating expenses, and whilst this will lead to operational benefits "quickly", a "full financial return will take time to materialise," Informa said. It reiterated its target to have all four of its operating divisions delivering organic growth by the end of 2016.
Informa said that it will continue its acquisition strategy and also will continue to manage its portfolio, which it said may lead to the sale of its consumer information and forecasting assets in 2015.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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