8th Jun 2023 11:20
(Alliance News) - RWS Holdings PLC on Thursday announced its intention to launch a share repurchase programme, and reported a decline in interim profit, while revenue grew slightly.
Shares in RWS were up 14% at 258.26 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
The Buckinghamshire, England-based technology-enabled language services provider said pretax profit for the six months ended March 31 fell 13% to GBP28.7 million from GBP32.9 million the year before, as amortisation of acquired intangibles grew 15% to GBP19.3 million.
Revenue rose slightly by 2.5% to GBP366.3 million from GBP357.3 million a year prior. This attributed to further development in RWS's key growth areas eLearning and Linguistic Validation.
The company also noted an increase in software as a service proportion of licence revenues in its Language & Content Technology division to 33% "moderated overall divisional revenue growth", but said it "builds long-term value" for financial 2024.
RWS declared an interim dividend of 2.40 pence per share, up 6.7% from 2.25p per share a year prior.
Looking ahead to the current financial year 2023 ending September 30, RWS said it expects a second-half weighting to its performance, and forecasts revenue be in line with market expectations of GBP741.6 million to GBP751.2 million, compared to GBP749.2 million in financial 2022. Further, it expects to meet the adjusted pretax range of GBP121.3 million to GBP128.3 million, at least 5.5% lower than GBP135.7 million a year prior. The consensus of GBP126.6 million would be a decline of 6.7% annually.
The company added that rapid development in artificial intelligence and large language models are creating "clear growth opportunities."
Chief Executive officer Ian El-Mokadem said: "With our strong balance sheet and cash generation, we are actively pursuing acquisitions that could accelerate delivery of our medium-term plans. We are encouraged to see a much more exciting pipeline in the last six months which provides us with attractive opportunities to deploy our cash and we are at an advanced stage with a number of bolt-on opportunities."
RWS also announced on Thursday its intention to launch a share buyback programme of up to GBP50 million, which will be completed ahead of the company's annual general meeting in February 2024.
By Sabrina Penty, Alliance News reporter
Comments and questions to [email protected]
Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
RWS Holdings