(Alliance News) - Keywords Studios PLC on Wednesday said it was confident of meeting its full-year financial expectations after revenue and profit jumped in the first half.
Shares in Keywords Studios were trading down 4.3% at 3,064.00 pence each in London on Wednesday.
The London-based video game industry services provider reported a big rise in revenue.
In the six months ended June 30, revenue reached EUR238.7 million up 38% from EUR173.5 million in the previous year and 56% above the EUR153.2 million taken two years ago.
Pretax profit nearly doubled, reaching EUR21.9 million from EUR11.1 million a year ago. In comparison, the company reported profit before tax of EUR18.4 million in the first half of 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The recent half beat this by 19%.
The company declared an interim dividend of 0.70p, compared to none a year before and up 21% from its 2019 interim dividend of 0.58p.
Although business has started well in the second half, the company said growth rates were likely to moderate against stronger comparatives from the previous year.
Regardless, Keywords said it was "confident" that it could deliver against recently increased market expectations for the full year.
The company added that it will continue to review its pipeline of acquisition opportunities, with a focus on adding expertise to build its Game Development and Marketing service lines.
In August, the company acquired AMC - a Bucharest, Romania-based video game art studio - in a EUR2.8 million deal.
"We expect the strong demand to continue, giving us confidence in delivering a full year performance in line with recently increased market expectations, and our financial strength leaves us well placed to continue to complement organic growth with value-accretive acquisitions," added chief financial officer and joint interim chief executive officer, Jon Hauck.
Since the retirement of its former chief executive Andrew Day in June, Hauck and Sonia Sedler have served as joint interim CEOs.
Keywords said its search for a new CEO is "very well advanced" with a related announcement expected in the coming weeks.
In addition, the company appointed two new non-executive directors, Marion Sears and Neil Thompson.
"Marion Sears...brings extensive governance and [mergers and acquisitions] expertise, and Neil Thompson...brings deep experience in the sector gained at Microsoft," the company noted.
By Scarlett Butler; scarlettbutler@alliancenews.com
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Keywords Studios Plc (KWS)