14th Aug 2019 09:41
(Alliance News) - Payment services provider Network International Holdings PLC on Wednesday reported strong revenue growth in its first interim results since listing in London earlier this year.
Network International's GBP2.20 billion initial public offering in April was the second largest in London this year - behind Airtel Africa Ltd's GBP2.67 billion listing in June.
Network International priced its IPO at 435 pence a share. On Wednesday morning, shares in FTSE 250-listed Network International Holdings were trading at 596.07p each, up 0.2% on the day and 37% from its listing price.
Mastercard Inc took a 9.9% holding in Network International on admission to the London Main Market as a cornerstone investor.
In the six months to June 30, the payment services provider's pretax profit halved to USD19.0 million from USD38.6 million. The large decline was attributed to costs associated with the company's recent IPO, particularly share-based compensation charges.
The company's underlying Ebitda grew 14% to USD76.4 million from USD67.1 million the year before.
Revenue rose 12% to USD152.3 million from USD135.6 million the year before.
"This was driven by good performance across both the regions and business lines, demonstrating the continued execution of our strategy and justifying the investments made over the last couple of years on technology, product capabilities and people," the company said.
In the Middle East, Network International's largest regional business, revenue grew 9.3%. The company attributed the growth to increased process volumes.
In Africa, revenue increased 22%. Growth across transactions, processed volumes and hosted cards were cited for the rise.
"Our markets are exposed to a number of strong secular trends that we aim to capture through the execution of our strategic agenda. Over the last six months, we have successfully extended contracts with some of our largest customers, deployed exciting new products at scale and strengthened our sales and innovation pipeline," said Chief Executive Simon Haslam.
"I am also pleased to report that our technology transformation remains on track for completion in 2019, with customers representing more than 96% of revenues migrated to the new platforms already. These platforms will underpin the growth of the organisation for many years to come."
Network International's two business units - Merchant Solutions and Issuer Solutions - recorded revenue growth of 11% and 13%, respectively.
Network International's total processed volumes grew by 11% to USD21.5 million from USD19.4 million a year before. The company now hosts 13.5 million cards, up 6.3% year on year.
The number of transaction increased 11% to 367.4 million from 330.8 million.
"Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we are well positioned to deliver on the guidance shared at the time of listing and anticipate delivering low double-digit constant currency organic revenue growth while maintaining stable underlying Ebitda margin. We expect our performance to accelerate to low-to-mid-teen organic constant currency revenue growth along with further moderate operating leverage over the medium-to-long term, with a number of growth accelerators being pursued that are expected to provide incremental upside in due course," added CEO Haslam.
Network International confirmed its intention to pay a full-year dividend for 2019 of 15% of underlying net income. The company's underlying net income in the first half was USD43.8 million.
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