10th Mar 2016 09:15
LONDON (Alliance News) - Office services provider Restore PLC on Thursday struck a deal to sell its Irish records management business as it posted higher revenue but flat pretax profit for 2015.
The company said it will sell its Restore Document Management Ireland Ltd business to Offsite Archive Storage & Integrated Services (Ireland) Ltd for EUR36.0 million in cash. The business holds the Irish assets of Wincanton Records Management, which Restore completed the acquisition of in December.
Restore intends to use the proceeds to pay down debt and then to fund its growth plans in its core UK market.
The sale came as Restore said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December was flat at GBP6.1 million, despite revenue rising, primarily due to higher administrative costs related to acquisitions the group has made.
Revenue rose to GBP91.9 million from GBP67.5 million, driven by strong trading in Restore's Relocation division. The Document Management division performed "satisfactorily", the company said, with revenue rising thanks to acquisitions and offsetting some weakness in its smaller Scan & Shred unit.
Restore hiked its final dividend 37% to 2.2 pence per share, taking its total dividend up to 3.2p from 2.4p, a 33% rise.
"We are pleased to report another strong performance in 2015 and further significant progress in expanding the scale and scope of the group's activities," said Chief Executive Charles Skinner.
"Looking ahead, our near-term focus will be on delivering the cost and capacity synergies from the Wincanton acquisition, continuing to improve the performance of our Shred and Scan businesses, and ensuring that our newer activities, in particular IT recycling and printer cartridge recycling, benefit in full from the cross-selling opportunities that arise from the breadth of the Group's customer base," Skinner added.
Restore shares were down 0.5% to 317.56p.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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