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LONDON (Alliance News) - Private hospitals operator Spire Healthcare Group PLC on Thursday said it swung to a pretax profit in 2015 due to a significant fall in one-off costs, as revenue ticked higher.
Spire said it made a pretax profit of GBP73.6 million in the year to the end of December, compared to a GBP7.0 million loss a year earlier when it booked exceptional costs related to restructuring, hospital closures and regulatory and governance costs. It also booked significant finance costs a year earlier due to its listing in London in July 2014.
Revenue increased to GBP884.8 million from GBP856.0 million a year earlier, up 2.5%, with growth seen across all payor groups. In-patient and daycase admissions rose 3.7% year-on-year to 270,000, again with growth across the board.
Spire said it will pay a final dividend of 2.4 pence per share, up from 1.8p a year earlier. As it paid an interim dividend in 2015, which it did not in 2014 due to its listing, its total dividend more than doubled to 3.7p from 1.8p.
"We remain confident of significant business growth in the independent sector in the next five years, and we will continue to increase our asset base to accommodate increased patient numbers," said Rob Roger, Spire's chief executive.
Roger said the construction of Spire's new hospitals in Manchester and Nottingham is on schedule, with both due to open in the first quarter of 2017.
He said Spire expects further sales growth in 2016, with margins to be broadly flat year-on-year, and anticipates good medium-term growth in payor demand.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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