LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in Arena Events PLC rose Wednesday as the firm expressed a positive outlook after good performance in 2018.
Arena Events was trading at 34.89 pence a share, up 11%.
Arena Events provides temporary structures for major events, with recent work including the Cheltenham festival, and coming up the rugby world cup in Japan in the autumn of 2019.
Revenue in 2018 climbed 24% to GBP135.0 million, and it has narrowed its pretax loss to GBP1.6 million from GBP3.1 million in 2017.
Arena Events is paying a final dividend of 1.0p per share, taking the total for 2018 11% higher year-on-year to 1.5p.
"2018 was a year of continued progress and growth for the group, both organically and through eight strategic acquisitions across our three regional divisions," said Chief Executive Greg Lawless.
"Each of these acquisitions contributes towards our ambition of becoming the leading, most respected, integrated event solutions business in the world."
Looking ahead, Arena Events sees another year of growth, helped by full contributions from its eighth acquisitions.
In 2020, it has major events such as golf's US Open and Ryder Cup, as well as the Tokyo Olympics.
Arena Events will in future be reporting for financial year ending in March, so its next annual reporting period will cover the 15 months to March 2020.
This is due to the fact its revenue is "significantly" weighted towards the last quarter of the calendar year.
