4th Sep 2018 09:44
LONDON (Alliance News) - Johnson Service Group PLC on Tuesday expressed confidence in beating market expectations for full-year earnings, following an improvement in the first half of 2018.
The cleaning services provider said pretax profit for the six months to June 30 rose 8.5% to GBP14.0 million from GBP12.9 million reported for the same period a year earlier, as revenue climbed by 10% to GBP152.2 million from GBP138.0 million.
The company said its strong financial performance reflects organic growth of 7.2% combined with the benefits of acquisitions.
The HORECA division delivered revenue of GBP89.0 million, up 15% from GBP77.6 million a year ago, helped by an increased volumes of orders, following the acquisition of StarCounty Textiles in Wrexham in December last year.
Meanwhile, in the Workwear division, revenue improved by 4.6% to GBP63.2 million from GBP60.4 million the prior year, driven by positive developments within existing customers and a price increase.
As a result, Johnson Services upped its interim dividend by 11% to 1.0 pence per share from 0.9p paid the year prior.
"We are delighted to report another consistently strong performance across the group," said Chief Executive Chris Sander.
"Recent organic growth and margin performance gives us confidence in the outlook for the second half of 2018," Sander continued. "As a result, we expect results for the full-year to be slightly ahead of current market expectations."
The stock was up 2.2% Tuesday morning at 142.60 pence.
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