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LONDON (Alliance News) - International Greetings PLC Tuesday reported a rise in profit in its recently-ended financial year as sales grew and it reduced its net debt, and it said it will resume the payment of dividends.
The greeting cards and gift packaging company reported a pretax profit in the year ended March 31 of GBP7.3 million, up from GBP5.2 million the year before, as revenue grew 2% to GBP229 million from GBP224.5 million.
International Greetings said that while revenue fell in the UK and Asia as it sought to focus on the preferred mix of sales and optimise profitability in its most mature markets, business in Europe demonstrated good growth and record sales volumes, and the Australia and USA businesses "both grew revenue well".
However, the company noted that the USA and Australia are still not achieving their full potential and that it has begun further investments in the USA in order to bring improvement.
International Greetings said that it reduced its net debt by 20% to GBP29.4 million from GBP36.9 million and reduced leverage to 1.8 times in 2015 from 2.4 times in 2014, allowing it to recommence dividend payments a year ahead of schedule. It will therefore pay a dividend of 1 pence per share for the year.
"The investments we have made during the period mean we are very much on plan to deliver double digit cumulative average growth in earnings per share and we remain determined to continue to drive performance and reduce leverage. We believe we can achieve these objectives while simultaneously providing a dividend return for shareholders and investing carefully for further future growth," Chief Executive Paul Fineman said in a statement.
Shares in International Greetings were trading up 4.5% at 127.00 pence Tuesday morning.
By Karolina Kaminska; karolinakaminska@alliancenews.com @KarolinaAllNews
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