12th Nov 2019 08:10
(Alliance News) - Experian PLC on Tuesday upped its annual guidance and interim payout following earnings growth in the first half of its current financial year.
The information services company said its pretax profit in the six months to the end of September improved by 2.1% to USD480 million from USD470 million, with revenue growing by 5.5% to USD2.50 billion from USD2.36 billion.
"We have started the year well," said Chief Executive Brian Cassin. "This reflects successful execution on big new addressable market opportunities, the global roll out of our innovative platforms and considerable momentum in Consumer Services as we invest in Experian Boost."
Experian declared an interim dividend of 14.5 US cents per share, up 3.6% from 14.0 cents it paid a year before. On Friday last week, the company has completed its USD181 million share repurchase programme, of which USD137 million was bought back in the first half.
Looking ahead, the Dublin-headquartered company said it now expect full-year organic revenue growth in the 7% to 8% range, at the upper end of our previous guidance. First-half organic revenue growth was 7%.
"We continue to expect earnings before interest and taxes growth at or above revenue growth and strong progress in benchmark earnings per share, all at constant currency, and for the full year we expect operating cash conversion of around 90%," added Cassin.
Shares in Experian were 2.3% higher at 2,436.00 pence in London on Tuesday.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
Copyright 2019 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Experian