2nd Dec 2015 07:17
LONDON (Alliance News) - Enterprise software provider Sage Group PLC on Wednesday said its pretax profit edged lower in its recently-ended financial year due to restructuring costs, but its organic growth hit its target and the group remains confident on its outlook.
The FTSE 100-listed company, which provides accounting, resource planning, customer relationship management and payments software for businesses, said its pretax profit for the year to the end of September was GBP275.8 million, slightly down from the GBP278.7 million it made a year earlier, due to higher one-off selling and administrative costs related to restructuring activity to save costs.
Stripping out those one-offs, pretax profit rose to GBP358.5 million from GBP340.9 million.
Revenue rose to GBP1.44 billion from GBP1.35 billion, as Sage hit its target of improving organic sales growth in the year to 6.0%, from 5.0% growth a year earlier. Recurring revenue organic growth was 9.0% for the year, driven by software subscription revenue.
Software subscription contracts grew to more than 690,000 over the year, up from 450,000 a year earlier, while the value of its software subscriber base grew to GBP344.0 million from GBP268.0 million.
Sage will pay a total dividend for the year of 13.10 pence per share, up from 12.12p.
"Transformation is rarely linear and it is clear we have much to do as we manage the operational risks. Our balanced and sequenced approach, the experience of the management team, and the strong underlying characteristics of the business give me confidence in the delivery of long term, sustainable, high quality growth," said Stephen Kelly, Sage's chief executive.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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