ITE Group H1 profit up, new CEO appointed

(ShareCast News) - Events company ITE Group posted a rise in first-half pre-tax profit as it announced the appointment of a new chief executive. For the six months to the end of March, pre-tax profit was up 36% to £10.6m as revenue grew to £63.6m from £56.1m.Chief executive Russell Taylor said: "ITE has delivered a good first half performance showing the benefits of the group's diversification strategy. The trading environment in Russia and Central Asia continued to be challenging over the first half but the acquired Breakbulk portfolio and Africa Oil Week together with the increased stake in ABEC's Indian events portfolio have supported a good performance from the Group's business in Asia and the Rest of the world. "Looking forward, prospects in Russia are improving and the economy is expected to show growth in 2017. ITE has a sound financial platform with good operating cash flows and the group is entering the second half of the year with good visibility on current year bookings. Accordingly the board has confidence in the full year outcome."ITE cut its interim dividend this year to 1.5p from 2.5p in 2015 pointing to the current lower levels of trading in Russia and Central Asia and saying it believes rebuilding dividend cover to historic levels of more than 2 times earnings is in the best long-term interest of shareholders.The board expects to be able to resume a progressive dividend policy in the future and will seek to maintain over two times earnings cover going forward.Also on Monday, ITE announced the appointment of Mark Shashoua as CEO. He will succeed Taylor, who will stand down from the role on 1 September following 13 years at the company.Shashoua has been CEO of B2B events and trade exhibitions company i2i Events since November 2011. Prior to that, he was involved in establishing Expofund Ltd, a corporate investment fund and was an operating partner with Advent International.At 0818 BST, shares were down 0.3% to 148.59p.