12th Nov 2019 08:38
(Alliance News) - DCC PLC on Tuesday said its profit in the first half of its current financial year was hurt by exceptional costs, but it still expects to deliver annual results in line with market forecasts.
In addition, the Dublin-headquartered company said its Health & Beauty Solutions unit has acquired Ion Laboratories Inc to enhance its service offering to customers in the US market.
Ion Laboratories is a provider of contract manufacturing services, which is currently commissioning a new nutritional gummies manufacturing line. Nutritional gummies are chewable vitamins.
The consideration was based on an enterprise value of USD60 million, most of which was paid in cash on completion, DCC said.
Turning back to the results, the FTSE 100-listed sales, marketing and support services provider reported pretax profit of GBP57.6 million for the year to September 30, down by a third compared to GBP85.9 million it delivered a year ago, as revenue slid by 1.4% to GBP7.31 billion from GBP7.42 billion. On a constant currency basis, revenue fell by 1.7%.
Excluding net exceptional items and non-controlling interests, DCC's pretax profit grew by 14% to GBP135.9 million from GBP119.8 million year-on-year. The exceptional items include losses on disposal, restructuring, acquisition & integration costs, and a IAS 39 mark-to-market ineffectiveness charge.
DCC upped its interim payout by 10% to 49.5 pence a share.
"The business has performed strongly, with group operating profit well ahead of the prior year and all divisions delivering good profit growth, despite the more difficult economic and market backdrop, particularly in the UK," said Chief Executive Donal Murphy.
He added: "Notwithstanding the continuing uncertain macroeconomic outlook impacting the UK economy, and the Technology business in particular, the group believes that the year ending March 31, 2020, will be another year of good operating profit growth and further development and will be broadly in line with current market consensus expectations."
DCC shares were trading 4.1% lower in London on Tuesday at 7,072.00p each.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
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