26th Mar 2019 10:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Personal Group PLC on Tuesday reported a good performance across all of its operations in 2018, with revenue and profit up as a result.
Personal Group provides employee services, such as insurance and salary sacrifice schemes. The stock was up 6.6% Tuesday morning in London at 359.32 pence.
Pretax profit for 2017 was GBP10.2 million, 7.4% higher year-on-year, as revenue climbed 22% on the prior year to GBP55.3 million.
Personal Group wrote GBP31.4 million worth of gross premiums in 2018, up from GBP30.7 million a year prior, and the core Insurance arm did well, the firm said.
This was despite GDPR, the EU's general data protection regulation, which the company said led to clients delaying decision making, affecting both new business and existing clients.
Let's Connect, the firm's salary sacrifice business, also did well, increasing client numbers and revenue by 36% and 33% respectively.
Personal Group is returning a total of 23 pence per share to shareholders for 2018, up from 22.7p the year before.
Chief Executive Deborah Frost commented: "2018 saw a good performance across the group, with adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of GBP11.4 million broadly in line with market expectations, reflecting the strength of the underlying business.
"We achieved another year of strong new insurance sales whilst PG Let's Connect showing clear signs of recovery, combined with continued growth in software-as-a-service revenue. This performance reflects investments made by the group which have strengthened our client offer, supported by our proven team and ability to innovate to meet market needs."
"As we move into 2019, we continue to be well placed to respond to the opportunities being created," she added.
Challenges experienced in 2018 are expected to have "some further effect" in 2019, Personal Group said, while Brexit is providing uncertainty, but overall the outlook is confident.
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