5th Apr 2016 06:57
LONDON (Alliance News) - MartinCo PLC on Tuesday said it has significantly increased its total dividend after a 38% rise in revenue levered its pretax profit higher during the company's "most successful year to date".
The company, a property franchise group operating five brands across the UK, said it will pay a final dividend of 4.1 pence, which is larger than its total dividend for the previous year. This pushed the total dividend for 2015 to 5.9 pence per share, up 48% from the 4.0p total paid in 2014.
That material rise to the dividend came as MartinCo reported a 42% lift in pretax profit in 2015 to GBP2.7 million from the GBP1.9 million booked in 2014, driven by a 38% rise in revenue to GBP7.1 million from GBP5.2 million.
Gross profit increased to GBP6.8 million from GBP4.8 million, and operating profit rose to GBP2.7 million from GBP1.9 million, despite being dragged down slightly by higher administrative costs in the year, which were around GBP1.1 million higher than in 2014.
"2015 was our most successful year to date demonstrating the power of our multi-brand franchise strategy. It was a year of consolidation and growth for the group which saw us open 13 new offices across our brand stable, leveraging our expertise in lettings and growing our estate agency services across our expanded network," said Chief Executive Ian Wilson.
"Looking forward, we expect to launch a national financial services offering during 2016 with our partner Legal & General. We currently generate GBP1 from financial services for each GBP100 of revenue and we believe that this can be significantly improved," he added.
Revenue rose as the amount of management service fees collected in the year increased by 53% and the amount of properties managed by MartinCo that hold tenants rose to 45,000 from 42,000.
The amount of offices yielding annual fee income in excess of GBP500,000 also increased to 32 offices from 23 offices in 2014.
MartinCo's brands include Martin & Co, Xperience, Ellis & Co, CJ Hole, Parkers and Whitegates.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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