Friday preview: Spire Healthcare reports first-half earnings

(ShareCast News) - Spire Healthcare's first half results on Thursday are expected to reveal growth in pre-tax profit compared to the same time last year.The health provider may report pre-tax profit of £8m, up from £7.4m the prior year, according to the consensus forecast.Numis analyst Sally Taylor said she sees momentum seen in the first quarter to continue with increasing volumes across all three payer groups - private medical insurance (PMI), self-payments and NHS patients."Overall we expect 10% revenue growth including benefit from consolidating St Anthony's," she said. Spire bought St Anthony's Hospital in north Cheam, Surrey, last year."We expect NHS growth to remain the strongest organic growth contributor for H1 (+13%), followed by self-pay (+9%) and PMI (+1%), although with St Anthony included, we project reported growth rates of 14.7%, 13.2%, and 6.6%," Taylor added.Numis has projected EBITDA of £87m, a margin of 19% and growth of 8.8% year-on-year. The broker also anticipated an update on the ongoing construction programmes for the new hospitals in Manchester and Nottingham as well as the new six operating theatre block at St Anthony's."We also expect the company to discuss wage inflation relating to the National Living Wage (NLW) starting next year as well as the 1% cap on NHS staff pay and caps on agency spending within the NHS, and how this mix of factors will impact Spire over the coming years," Taylor said. "Spire trades on 2016E EV/EBITDA of 11.1x for 9.5% EBITDA CAGR 2015-2018E which we continue to believe is attractive."The results come amid news Cinven has sold its 29.9% stake in Spire to Remgro, a major Mediclinics shareholder, for 360p per share.Friday August 21 UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Public Sector Finances (09:30) INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Consumer Confidence Indicator (EU) (10:00) GFK Consumer Confidence (GER) (07:00) INTERIMS Tritax Big Box Reit INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Blackrock Throgmorton Trust, Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund Ltd (DI), One Media IP Group, Triple Point Income VCT GMS 88 Energy Limited (DI), ReNeuron Group ANNUAL REPORT Abbey AGMS Iona Environmental VCT FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Atkins (WS), Castings, Cayenne Trust, Datang International Power Generation Co Ltd., Heath (Samuel) & Sons, Immunodiagnostic Systems Holdings, Scapa Group