15th Jan 2019 08:41
LONDON (Alliance News) - Provident Financial PLC on Tuesday said it expects its 2018 profit to come in towards the lower end of market expectations, despite making "further good progress" in the last quarter.
Shares in the subprime lender were trading 20% lower at 529.20 pence each, the worst performer in the FTSE 250 Index.
Currently, the market forecasts the lender's pretax profit to be between GBP151 million and GBP166 million. A year ago, the company reported a GBP123.0 million pretax loss.
"Moneybarn has continued to perform well and CCD has performed in line with internal plans during the last quarter of the year. Vanquis Bank has delivered further customer and receivables growth although impairment has been modestly higher than expected," the company said, providing details of its divisions.
The group expects to report exceptional costs of GBP55 million in 2018, representing costs associated with the implementation of the home credit recovery plan, comprising intangible and tangible asset write offs, redundancy and consultancy costs, non-cash pension charges and others costs.
Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Le May said: "I am very pleased with the progress we have made in 2018 on delivering against the operational objectives we set ourselves at the start of the year."
Provident Financial expects to declare a "normal" dividend in respect of 2018.
The company will post its annual results on February 27.
Related Shares:
PFG.L