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LONDON (Alliance News) - Vianet Group PLC Tuesday expressed confidence on a "positive outcome" to its current financial year, as it reported a small drop in profit for its most recent financial year following the sale of its fuel division.
Vianet provides real-time monitoring systems and data management services to the leisure and vending sectors.
For the year to end-March, Vianet reported a pretax profit of GBP1.8 million, down from GBP2.0 million the year before, as revenue dipped slightly to GBP14.3 million from GBP14.4 million.
Including its fuel division, which Vianet agreed to sell at the end of 2015, revenue rose to GBP19.2 million from GBP18.5 million.
Vianet sold the Vianet Fuel Solutions division to US-based Wayne Fueling Systems in order to focus on its vending and leisure businesses. This sale was completed at the end of January, and Vianet noted that whilst this division helped growth in the period, trading in both its leisure and vending divisions has been robust in the second half and into the new year.
In its core business, beer flow monitoring, the company said that ongoing pub closures have held back its performance in the past few years. However, Vianet said the rate of pub closures seemed to be slowing and reduced from the previous year, and combined with improved recurring revenue from contract extension negotiations and sales of its iDraught system, helped result in a "largely stable" revenue stream.
In its vending business Vianet continued to make "very good progress", and it launched a new contactless payment product in September.
Vianet proposed a final dividend of 4.00 pence, taking its total dividend for the year to 5.70 pence, maintained from the previous year.
"I am pleased with our performance across the entire business in the period under review. We saw good progress in each of the three divisions and we are continuing to pursue growth opportunities in our Vending and Leisure divisions," said Chairman James Dickson in a statement.
"The board of Vianet looks forward confidently to a positive outcome from the current financial year," Dickson added.
Shares in Vianet were down 4.2% at 98.25 pence Tuesday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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