LONDON (Alliance News) - Wireless Group PLC on Thursday said its pretax profit grew in 2015 thanks to an exceptional profit made on the sale of its Juice FM business.
Wireless, the former UTV Media business which changed its name following the sale of its television assets to ITV PLC, said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December was GBP17.6 million, compared to GBP11.9 million a year earlier, mostly as a result of the GBP6.9 million one-off profit made on the sale of Juice FM.
Stripping out the gain, pretax profit declined to GBP10.7 million from GBP11.9 million. The decline in profit relates to the continuing operations at Wireless, not including the television assets sold to ITV in a GBP100.0 million deal. Revenue for the continuing operations fell to GBP75.1 million from GBP82.4 million.
Wireless will pay a final dividend of 7.6 pence per share.
Wireless said it expects growth for its Radio GB business in 2016, driven by the Euro 2016 football tournament in the summer, and said it expects to benefit from its robust position in the Irish market as the economy recovers.
"The new Wireless Group has a very exciting future as a focused radio business with market leading assets, a robust balance sheet and a strong management team. We are targeting double-digit profit growth over the medium term which should deliver both significant income and capital growth for shareholders over the coming years," said Richard Huntingford, Wireless Group's chairman.
Wireless shares were down 2.0% to 181.00 pence.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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