9th Oct 2018 09:50
LONDON (Alliance News) - Marketing services firm Kin & Carta PLC held firm on its dividend Tuesday amid a rise in revenue, despite its annual loss deepening sharply as one-off costs hurt performance.
For the 53 weeks ended August 3, pretax loss from continuing operations deepened to GBP31.2 million from GBP19.2 million the year prior. This was despite revenue improving to GBP178.4 million from GBP162.9 million the year before.
Profit performance was hurt by administrative expenses jumping to GBP92.5 million from GBP69.2 million the year prior. This was primarily due to exceptional costs of GBP50.7 million, up from GBP34.7 million the year before, chiefly due to restructuring and acquisition costs.
On an underlying basis - excluding exceptional items - pretax profit rose to GBP18.5 million from GBP13.4 million the year before.
"It's been a transformational year as we've achieved our long-term ambition to move away from our print legacy to focus solely on strategic marketing and now more specifically, digital transformation," Kin & Carta Chief Executive Officer John Schwan said.
Kin & Carta was known as St Ives PLC until last Wednesday.
Having started out as a printing business, St Ives has been disposing of its historic publishing assets for some time. In June, it sold its print management business for GBP11.0 million to Paragon Customer Communications Ltd which was the last of its non-digital units.
This followed, in May, the firm selling its Clays book printing business to major printing group Elcograf SpA for GBP20.0 million.
"The digital transformation market is large, growing and we are well positioned to capitalise on this opportunity," Schwan continued. "We're a 1,500-strong global team with the size and the reach to help the world's largest companies to invent, operate and market profitable new products and services."
Kin & Carta proposed a flat 1.30 pence final dividend per share. This also holds firm on the 1.95p full year dividend paid the year prior.
"Trading at the start of the new financial year has been in line with expectations, with a strong pipeline and a number of project wins from new and existing clients," Schwan added. "With a recently strengthened balance sheet, we are confident we can both grow organically and by acquisition. I believe the future for Kin & Carta is very bright."
Shares in Kin & Carta were 7.5% lower at 93.46 pence on Tuesday.
Related Shares:
KCT.L