LONDON (Alliance News) - Worldpay Group PLC, the UK payments processor, on Tuesday said it swung to a pretax profit in 2015, reporting its maiden set of results since becoming a publicly listed company.
Pretax profit amounted to GBP19.1 million in 2015, versus a pretax loss of GBP47.1 million in 2014, the company said in a statement. Worldpay processed 13.1 billion transactions in 2015, up 14% on the number processed in 2014, driving net revenue up by about the same percentage to GBP981.7 million.
Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amoritsation rose by 8.4% to GBP406.1 million, a slight miss on company-compiled consensus expectations of GBP406.9 million, based on the average of 12 analysts' forecasts.
The payments company said it has had a "good start" to 2016, in line with expectations, and did not alter previous guidance that it will target net revenue growth of about 9.0% to 11% on a compound annual growth rate basis over the medium to long term.
Worldpay, which was carved out of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC in 2010 and sold to private equity firms Advent International Corp and Bain Capital LLC, floated on the London Stock Exchange in October 2015. It has since joined the FTSE 100 index of blue chip companies.
"We made significant operational and financial progress in 2015. It was a year of considerable achievement, in the implementation of our strategy, in strengthening and deepening our market presence, capabilities and technology, and helping our customers prosper," Chief Executive Officer Philip Jansen said in a statement.
Worldpay declared no dividend for 2015, in line with its guidance at the time of its IPO. However, it expects to declare an interim for 2016.
The stock closed at 291.90 pence on Monday, ahead of the 240.00p pricing of the company's IPO.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
