8th Mar 2016 09:07
LONDON (Alliance News) - Marketing services provider St Ives PLC on Tuesday said its pretax loss narrowed in the first half of its financial year, and it affirmed its full-year expectations, albeit with a caveat of caution on the outlook for marketing budgets in the second half.
St Ives said its pretax loss for the 26 weeks to January 29 was GBP2.8 million, compared to a GBP8.7 million loss a year before, as it continued to restructure its business to better position it for growth, including repositioning its Strategic Marketing division. Stripping out one-off costs, pretax profit rose to GBP16.1 million from GBP15.4 million.
Revenue rose to GBP185.7 million from GBP175.0 million, with good growth in the revamped Strategic Marketing arm partially offset by some weakness in its Marketing Activation segment, driven by pressures in the grocery sector, while revenue for its Books business was flat.
The group will pay an interim dividend of 2.35 pence, up 4.0% year-on-year.
Chief Executive Matt Armitage said the group performed well in the year, with Strategic Marketing now contributing more than half of overall underlying profit. He said that the group remains confident on meeting expectations and that the Strategic Marketing arm is focused on service areas which will remain robust, even if the current global economic uncertainty does exert pressure on the allocation of marketing budgets.
St Ives shares were down 7.4% to 220.75p on Tuesday morning, one of the worst performers in the FTSE All-Share.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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