(Alliance News) - Alfa Financial Software Holdings PLC on Wednesday said it expects good revenue growth in 2022, but margins will come under pressure from salary inflation.
Alfa is a London-based software developer for the finance industry. Shares were up 12% to 160.00 pence each in London on Wednesday.
Pretax profit in 2021 increased 2.6% to GBP23.8 million from GBP23.2 million in 2020.
A rise in revenue was mitigated by higher costs, leading to the marginal rise in profit.
Revenue from continuing operations rose 5.4% to GBP83.2 million from GBP78.9 million. Cost of sales grew 7.4% to GBP29.0 million from GBP27.0 million, while sales, general & administrative expenses deepened 5.3% to GBP30.0 million from GBP28.5 million.
"We started 2021 with a strong financial and delivery performance and maintained this through the whole of the year. The market opportunity for Alfa is very exciting," said Chief Executive Andrew Denton.
Alfa declared a final dividend of 1.1 pence per share, up 10% from 1.0p a year before. A special payout of 10.0p also was declared, but this was 33% lower from 15.0p in 2020. In 2019, the company did not pay any dividends.
Alfa also launched a GBP18 million buyback programme which will run for 18 months.
Looking ahead, Denton said: "We have good visibility of work for 2022, and assuming we continue our excellent recent record of attracting and retaining talent, we will see good revenue growth in 2022, albeit with some additional margin pressure due to salary inflation and return to normal costs.
"With the improving quality of our revenue mix, the strategic improvements made across the business, the quality of our people and strength of the intellectual property in our software, we have great confidence in Alfa's prospects."
By Greg Roxburgh; gregroxburgh@alliancenews.com
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Alfa Fin (ALFA)