LONDON (Alliance News) - Georgia Healthcare Group PLC on Tuesday reported a rise in pretax profit in the first quarter of 2016, helped by a strong performance in its healthcare services business, and gave a bullish forecast for the year ahead.
The company reported a pretax profit of GEL12.7M for the quarter to end-March, up from GEL6.9 million in the first quarter of 2015, on revenue of GEL71.7 million, up from GEL53.9 million.
At current exchange rates, this is equivalent to a pretax profit of GBP4.0 million, up from GBP2.2 million, on revenue of GBP22.5 million, up from GBP17.0 million.
Georgia Healthcare attributed its revenue growth to a strong performance in its healthcare services business, and stabilisation in its medical insurance business following a period of reductions reflecting the Georgian government's increased focus on the Universal Healthcare Programme.
Georgia Healthcare said that Georgia has continued to delivery a remarkably resilient performance from a macroeconomic perspective, seeing real gross domestic product growth of 3.4% in the quarter. Additionally, the Georgian lari strengthened against the dollar by over 10%.
"We believe we remain extremely well positioned to deliver strong earnings momentum in 2016 and beyond, from both high levels of organic revenue growth as well as from the benefits of our key strategic priorities and recent acquisitions. We are clearly on track to deliver our targeted more than doubling of 2015 healthcare services revenues by 2018," said Chief Executive Officer Nikoloz Gamkrelidze in a statement.
Georgia Healthcare is 65% owned by FTSE 250-constituent BGEO Group PLC.
Shares in Georgia Healthcare were up 9.5% at 230.00 pence early Tuesday.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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