12th Sep 2018 14:00
LONDON (Alliance News) - Wilmington PLC on Wednesday reported a hefty decrease in annual profit, due to an impairment charge and the lack of a one-off gain, but the company nonetheless increased its shareholder payout.
In the twelve months ended June, the publishing company posted pretax profit of GBP3.0 million, a fraction of the GBP15.9 million reported the year before.
Wilmington said one-off investments totalling GBP4.6 million, up from GBP3.5 million, related to a new London HQ and implementing new IT infrastructure hurt profit.
More significant was a GBP8.6 million impairment charge related to historic goodwill of the company's Law for Lawyers business, up from impairments of GBP2.4 million the year before. A prior year gain of GBP6.3 million on the sale of leasehold property not repeating in the year also contributed to the comparative profit decrease.
The education, healthcare and networking publisher's annual revenue increased 1.5% to GBP122.1 million from GBP120.3 million.
Wilmington's Risk & Compliance, Healthcare and Professional businesses all posted slight increases in revenue and operating profit.
Risk & Compliance's revenue increased 1.4% to GBP42.9 million from GBP42.3 million and operating profit was up 4.9% to GBP12.9 million from GBP12.3 million.
Healthcare posted a 4.9% revenue increase to GBP44.6 million from GBP42.5 million and a 5.3% increase in operating profit to GBP9.9 million from GBP9.4 million.
The Professional division revenue decreased by 2.5% to GBP34.6 million from GBP35.5 million and increased operating profit by 1.6% to GBP6.2 million from GBP6.1 million.
In 2018, the company's total operating expenses increased to GBP117.1 million from GBP108.8 million.
The company declared a final dividend of 4.8 pence per share, resulting a total dividend of 8.8p, up 4% from 8.5p paid the year before.
Looking ahead, Wilmington said it is focussing on improving revenue via organic growth. Despite a 3% organic decrease in financial year 2018, the company believes "many of the challenges" faced were a result of "significant restructuring".
The company believes the restructuring, and the "significant" investments made in its IT platforms, can "provide a catalyst for growth".
Wilmington expects its revenue growth in 2019 to grow in the "low single digit percentage" range. The company expects every division to grow revenue, with costs rising too.
Chief Executive Officer Pedro Ros said: "Against a backdrop of challenging trading conditions we made good progress in the year. Going forward we remain confident of achieving expectations for the year just started. We are focused on delivering sustainable underlying revenue and profit growth which we believe will deliver significant value for shareholders."
Shares in Wilmington were down 1.0% Wednesday at 181.50 pence each.
Related Shares:
Wilmington