4th Mar 2014 09:11
LONDON (Alliance News) - Pace PLC raised its full-year dividend as pretax profit rose in 2013. Revenue growth was driven by a strong performance in Pace's PayTV hardware division, and it forecast further revenue growth for 2014.
The PayTV and broadband technologies and products company posted a full-year dividend of 5.49 cents per share, up from 4.50 cents in the previous year.
Pace posted pretax profit of USD130.8 million, up from USD80.1 million in the previous year, as revenue rose to USD2.47 billion from USD2.40 million and administrative costs declined.
In the company's PayTV hardware division, revenues for set-top boxes and media servers rose to USD1.98 billion from USD1.83 billion, driven by demand for media servers during the first half in North America and new product deployments in the second half.
However, revenues from Pace's network gateways declined to USD375.8 million from USD469.4 million as a "the impact of expected dual sourcing at a major customer" was only partly offset by new customer wins.
Pace posted total administrative costs of USD309.4 million, down from USD339.2 million, primarily due to lower research and development expenditure. The company completed the rationalisation of its Electronic Manufacturing Services segment during the period, which it said had delivered "significant operational and financial benefits in 2013 and beyond."
Pace forecast revenues for 2014 of around USD2.7 billion, with its operating margin expected to be around 8.5%. The company said it expects its strong cash flow to continue in 2014, generating over USD185 million of free cash flow. It expects the integration of its acquisition Aurora Networks Inc to be completed by the end of the second quarter of 2014.
"We are confident about our trajectory and are focused on making further progress in 2014 and beyond," said Chief Executive Officer Mike Pulli in a statement.
Shares in Pace were trading up 6.0% at 427.60 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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