16th Mar 2015 07:55
LONDON (Alliance News) - Tribal Group PLC said Monday that, whilst it did not meet its financial targets for 2014, its expectations for 2015 are unchanged, as it swung to a loss in 2014 mostly due to impairment charges.
The education software and services provider proposed a final dividend of 1.20 pence, taking its total for 2014 to 1.80p, up from 1.60p in 2013.
Tribal posted a pretax loss of GBP6.3 million for 2014, versus a pretax profit of GBP13.5 million in 2013, as revenue declined to GBP123.7 million from GBP125.5 million and it posted GBP17.1 million in exceptional costs.
These included an impairment charge of GBP12.8 million, primarily relating to Ofsted's decision to take its schools inspection activities in house from September of this year, and other costs relating to the relocation of Tribal's head office.
Stripping out amortisation and other exceptional costs, Tribal posted a pretax profit of GBP13.4 million, down from GBP14.6 million a year before.
Tribal attributed the decline in revenue to weakness in some UK markets and the restructuring of its operations which led to its performance improvement tools and services revenue falling 12%, offsetting a 9% rise in revenue in its student management systems operations.
Acquisitions contributed GBP7.7 million to revenue in 2014.
The company had set itself a target to double its earnings per share over the three years to the end of 2014, and said it had fallen short of this target. However it expressed confidence for further progress in 2015 and over the medium term.
"Customer contracts are taking longer to complete, but our pipeline of new customer contracts is good and includes a number of contracts where we are preferred supplier. Whilst we did not meet our financial targets for 2014, the group is well positioned to make further progress this year and over the medium term, and our expectations for 2015 are unchanged," said Chief Executive Keith Evans in a statement.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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