SpaceandPeople Brings Back Dividend Though Warns On Slower 2018 Start

LONDON (Alliance News) - SpaceandPeople PLC on Monday resumed its annual dividend payment on solid profit and revenue growth, though it did warn its UK experiential campaign team has had a tougher start to 2018.

SpaceandPeople, a retail, promotional, and brand experience specialist, posted a pretax profit of GBP1.2 million in 2017, swinging from a loss of GBP225,000 in 2016, while revenue for the year increased to GBP10.0 million from GBP9.7 million.

The company is paying a dividend of 1.5 pence per share for 2017, having not paid one in 2016, a "challenging" year, after a 2.20p payout in 2015.

SpaceandPeople UK Retail revenue increased to GBP3.4 million from GBP3.2 million, while in UK Promotions, the company managed to generate more business from high footfall non-shopping centre locations than shopping centres.

German trading was "mixed", with Promotions revenue falling 12% to GBP800,000 due to reduced work with existing clients. The Retail arm did well, SpaceandPeople said.

However, looking forward, the UK experiential campaign team had a "slightly slower" start to 2018 than expected, due to the timing difference on repeat bookings, though the company said this is being worked on.

Shares were down 7.5% on Monday at a price of 31.00 pence each.