LONDON (Alliance News) - Premier Veterinary Group PLC on Monday said its pretax profit widened in the first half of its financial year, as it refocused on its preventive healthcare programme, Pet Care Plan, but it did make a large gain on the disposal of its remaining veterinary practices.
The company, which provides services to third party veterinary practices, said its pretax loss almost doubled to GBP1.1 million in the six months to March 31, compared with GBP570,000 for the same period a year earlier.
The wider loss came despite a rise in revenue to GBP1.4 million from GBP1.1 million, as administrative expenses nearly doubled to GBP2.2 million from GBP1.2 million a year earlier.
However, due to a GBP4.1 million gain on disposal, total comprehensive profit for the period came in at GBP3.2 million, from a loss of GBP373,000 a year earlier.
During the period, Premier Veterinary completed the sale of its remaining veterinary practices Zetland Ltd, Thanet One Ltd and The Veterinary Clinic (Bearwood) Ltd to Independent Vetcare Ltd for GBP4.1 million, following a strategic review of its portfolio of assets.
In additional, intercompany loan balances of GBP2.4 million due from the three business were repaid on disposal and, as such, the consideration received was GBP6.5 million. This allowed Premier Veterinary to repay all its debt, the company said, and increased net assets by GBP4.0 million.
Premier Veterinary said its Premier Vet Alliance Ltd subsidiary was identified as the "long-term value driver", and Premier Veterinary said it will use the additional resources from the sale of its other businesses to fund the expansion of Premier Vet Alliance and to accelerate the roll-out of Pet Care Plan in multiple overseas territories.
"The company continues to grow rapidly in the preventative healthcare market. Over the twelve months since March 31, 2015, the company's proprietary Pet Care Plan has more than doubled the number of pets on plan. Premier Vet Alliance is continuing to invest in the global expansion of its Pet Care Plan business with the objective of achieving significant and sustained growth for the foreseeable future," said Chief Executive Dominic Tonner.
Shares in Premier Veterinary were down 0.2% at 141.25 pence on Monday morning.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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