3rd Jul 2014 10:00
LONDON (Alliance News) - NCC Group PLC Thursday raised its total dividend, and expressed confidence for the year as it establishes its new Domain Services division, as it posted a higher pretax profit in its financial year to end-May.
The IT assurance company proposed a total dividend of 3.5 pence, up 13% from 3.1 pence in the previous year.
NCC posted a pretax profit of GBP23.2 million, up from GBP18.8 million in the previous year, as revenue rose to GBP110.7 million from GBP99.2 million, although this was damped slightly by costs of GBP2.1 million relating to the development of its Domain Services division.
Revenues from its Escrow division, rose to GBP30.5 million from GBP28.5 million, driven by contract growth and, to a smaller extent, price increases. As a result, the division posted a profit of GBP18.1 million, up from GBP16.7 million.
In Assurance, revenue rose to GBP80.2 million from GBP70.7 million, driving a rise in profit to GBP14.0 million from GBP12.0 million, boosted by strong growth in cyber security consultancy and testing revenues.
The company has established a third segment to its business, Domain Services, after it applied the the generic top level domain .secure in May 2012. It acquired the rights to the generic top level domain .trust during the year in order to provide a platform to launch its new service. It plans to launch this in the first half of the new year, subject to delays that might occur.
However, .secure remains in contention with another company, and NCC says this will be resolved during the current year.
The aim of the new division is to create a safer internet community, in which users applying for the .trust domain will be required to verify their identity and ensure their organisation is secure by complying to security policies. This is intended to make sure that customers can identify secure sites by the domain name.
NCC expects there to be at least 20 customers signed up for the new service by the end of fiscal 2015 and 70 by the fiscal 2016. It expects the division to post revenue of GBP1.0 million in the current year, rising to GBP5.0 million in the year after.
As a result, it expects the division to make an operating loss of around GBP4.3 million n the current year but move to a positive contribution in fiscal 2016.
"The outlook for NCC Group remains extremely promising. The economic uplift will help all businesses and the progress made by Domain Services to date suggests that it will become a significant contributor in the coming years," the company said in a statement.
Shares in NCC were trading up 2.7% at 197.25 pence Thursday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Ncc