9th Jul 2025 09:36
(Alliance News) - Zigup PLC on Wednesday said annual results beat expectations, despite reporting a double-digit decline in profit, and maintains a "positive outlook" for the new year.
Shares in Zigup were down 9.3% at 328.00 pence in London on Wednesday morning. The stock has faded 23% over the past year.
The Darlington, England-based company offering a range of mobility solutions including vehicle rental and fleet management said pretax profit was GBP101.5 million in the year that ended April 30, down 37% from GBP162.1 million the year before.
This was largely driven by a GBP26.5 million unwind of 2022 depreciation adjustment, against none the year before, the company said, plus exceptional items totalling GBP20.6 million.
Exceptional items included GBP12.8 million in expected costs of NewLaw withdrawing from the personal injury market and GBP2.8 million for the cyber incident reported by Zigup during its first-half.
Revenue declined 1.1% to GBP1.81 billion from GBP1.83 billion, but rose 2.3% on an underlying basis to GBP1.56 billion. Underlying pretax profit demonstrated a less sharp 7.6% decline to GBP166.9 million.
The underlying calculation excluded vehicle sales revenue and one-off items.
Vehicle sales revenue slipped 17% to GBP257.6 million during the year, as there were 2,300 fewer vehicles sold, with an expected reduction in residual values.
This compared to 5.2% growth in vehicle hire revenue to GBP682.9 million and a 0.1% increase in claims and services revenue to GBP872.2 million.
"The group has delivered a strong operational performance, reflecting a year of significant progress across the business, growing market share and benefitting from material improvements in customer service scores," said Chief Executive Officer Martin Ward.
"We have an excellent market position as at least a top three player in each of our markets which are highly receptive environments for our differentiated mobility solutions. We are continually improving these with a technology-enabled and value-added offering which is attractive to a growing and increasingly diverse customer base. I am delighted with the progress made across the business and it sets us up very well for the coming year".
Zigup declared a total dividend of 26.4p per share, up 2.3% on-year from 25.8p.
Looking ahead, Zigup expects "robust demand" for its mobility solutions, guiding for mid to upper single-digit underlying earnings before interest and tax growth for its operating divisions before taking into account disposal profits.
CEO Ward continued: "Vehicle supply has normalised and the market headwinds of vehicle residual values and replacement hire lengths have been stable since the autumn. The refinancing undertaken in the year further enhances our financial capacity and allows us to be responsive to opportunities to generate attractive and sustainable shareholder value; we start the new financial year with confidence for underlying growth opportunities."
By Emily Parsons, Alliance News reporter
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