14th May 2015 09:38
LONDON (Alliance News) - Stobart Group Ltd Thursday said its pretax loss from continuing operations narrowed in its last financial year as revenue was buoyed by the growth of its energy and aviation divisions and its finance costs fell by 85% as it paid back bank loans.
Its pretax loss from continuing operations for the year to February 28 was GBP9.4 million, compared with a GBP10.2 million loss a year earlier, as revenue grew to GBP116.6 million from GBP99.2 million.
However, its closely watched underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, which excludes some finance costs and amortisation and restructuring costs, fell to GBP17.7 million from GBP22.6 million, as profit on disposals and property revaluations in its infrastructure unit declined.
Stobart sold most of its stake in its former transportation and distribution unit in April 2014, and is now focused in its biomass fuel supply business, running London Southend and Carlisle Lake District airports, and rail engineering. It also has an infrastructure business, and an investments business which manages holdings in a property and logistics portfolio.
Underlying Ebitda was up in all the company's divisions bar rail and infrastructure.
Supply and transportation of biomass was up 29% to 1.2 million tonnes over the last financial year, as it moved towards its target of supplying over 2 million tonnes. Passenger numbers at London Southend rose 9% to 1.1 million and revenue per passenger was up 8.5% at GBP20.80, while revenue in the rail division was up 35%.
"We have made good progress with the implementation of the final stage of Stobart Group's growth and value creation strategy. We have focused primarily on delivering value in our two high growth divisions of Energy and Aviation," Chief Executive Andrew Tinkler said. "In addition, we have driven external projects in our Rail divisions whilst helping develop less mature internal infrastructure assets. Our Infrastructure division has also continued to realise value for our mature property assets."
The company said it will pay an unchanged final dividend of 4.0 pence for the year, meaning the total dividend was also unchanged at 6.0p. It also returned GBP34.8 million to shareholders through its share buyback programme.
"We expect to maintain our current dividend payment level and will continue to partially fund it from property disposals in the short term," it said.
The company's overall net loss for the year, including a much-reduced profit from discontinued operations, was GBP1.2 million compared with a GBP11.3 million profit a year earlier.
Stobart Group shares were down 1.1% at 108.00 pence Thursday morning.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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