17th Sep 2019 09:29
(Alliance News) - NAHL Group PLC on Tuesday said it performed in line with expectations in the first half of 2019 but lowered its interim dividend.
Revenue in the six months to June 30 grew by 3.9% year-on-year to GBP25.8 million from GBP24.9 million, but pretax profit fell by 14% to GBP4.6 million from GBP5.3 million.
NAHL attributed this to a sharp rise in Personal Injury segment reorganisation costs, to GBP805,000 from GBP142,000.
The legal industry-focused marketing services company lowered its interim dividend by 19% to 2.6 pence per share from 3.2p in the first half of 2018.
Its Personal Injury operating division, which includes the National Accident Helpline, performed in line with expectations during the period, with revenue rising 5.1% to GBP16.3 million from GBP15.5 million.
The Critical Care unit had a 10% revenue rise to GBP6.6 million from GBP6.0 million, driven by "organic growth from its case management business", NAHL said.
The company added: "The business is progressing a number of initiatives aimed at maintaining this growth and intends to upgrade its technology platform in 2020, which will create efficiencies and deliver further process improvements."
NAHL said that challenging property market conditions impacted its Residential Property unit which had a 13% fall in revenue to GBP3.0 million from GBP3.4 million.
The company's basic earnings per share during the period was 3.4p, down from 8.2p, but in line with expectations.
Chief Executive Russell Atkinson said: "As a group, we are pleased with the overall progress made in the first half of the year. The strategic transformation of our Personal Injury business continues and the changes put in place are now yielding positive results. Conditions within the residential property market have been well documented and remain challenging. The leadership team in our Residential Property division are focused on a range of initiatives to grow market share.
"We are encouraged by the progress made in the year so far, and although fully cognisant of the challenges ahead, we remain confident of achieving a full year result in line with our underlying earnings per share expectations."
Shares in NAHL were 7.8% lower at 115.28 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.
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