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LONDON (Alliance News) - Audio products maker Focusrite PLC hiked its full-year dividend Tuesday after its profit and revenue both expanded significantly, with trading solid into the new financial year.
For the year ended August, pretax profit widened 23% to GBP11.7 million from GBP9.5 million the year prior. This was after revenue rose 14% to GBP75.1 million from GBP66.1 million the year before.
"We are very pleased to present a set of results where growth is the overarching theme: both Focusrite and Novation segments have grown; as have all major geographic regions," Focusrite Chief Executive Officer Tim Carroll said.
Net cash levels at the end of the financial year grew 61% to GBP22.8 million from GBP14.2 million the year prior.
"Importantly, we continue to see strong market and reseller acceptance across our expanding portfolio, which highlights the strength of our brands, and our new product pipeline continues to grow", Carroll continued.
During the year, the firm launched five new products.
Carroll added: "There is much change in the trading environment, providing risk and some opportunity: changes in technology and new customer requirements can emerge quickly, macroeconomic and political factors affect our end customers and distributors alike and competitive pressures remain strong. We manage these factors proactively."
Focusrite proposed a 2.3 pence per share final dividend, up 18% from 1.95 the year prior. For the full year, the dividend rose 22% to 3.3p from 2.7p per share the year before.
"Last year, we had a record period pre-Christmas driven by a burst of demand for the group's more consumer-oriented products such as Launchpad, resulting in a weighting in favour of the first half," Carroll said. "As anticipated, trading in the first few months of this financial year has been broadly similar to the results achieved in the same period last year. The board expects the current year to follow the group's more usual seasonal pattern and, at this early stage, believes that Focusrite is well placed to deliver further growth for shareholders."
Shares in Focusrite were 2.5% higher at 432.00 pence on Tuesday.
