1st Oct 2013 07:37
LONDON (Alliance News) - St Ives PLC, a marketing services and printing company, increased its final dividend after it saw increases in pretax profits and declines in revenues in its recent full year.
St Ives recommended a final dividend of 4.50 pence, bringing its full-year dividend to 6.50 pence, up from 5.75 pence in the previous year.
For the 52 weeks ended August 2, the company posted a pretax profit of GBP7.1 million, up from GBP6.4 million in the previous year, which it attributed to decreases in underlying selling and administrative overheads. The company saw revenues decline slightly to GBP327.4 million from GBP329.5 million. However, the company said that removing the effect of acquisitions and the print sectors it has exited, revenues were in line with the previous year.
Underlying revenues for the company's Marketing Services segment increased 36%, due to successful new-business wins. However, underlying revenues for the Print Services division decreased by 9.8%; and Exhibitions and Events revenue dropped by 19% due to the one-off nature of the division's work during the 2012 Olympics.
St Ives said that its transition away from failing print markets had been successful. All of its businesses except for Clays, its specialist book-printing and distribution business, now provide marketing-related services. Print will continue to be a challenging market sector, St Ives said, but it would remain integral to its offering.
St Ives said it expects the Print Services division to make a lower contribution to the group in face of continuing downward pressure on prices. It said that the latest reports on marketing services provided encouraging indicators, and that it was well positioned to benefit from any up-turn in the economy.
Shares in St Ives were trading down 1.9% at 170.00 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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