Strong year for Homeserve

Home emergency repairs outfit Homeserve expects strong growth in full-year profits, as predicted before, and is confident of hitting the top end of its customer growth target."We continue to see good customer and policy numbers and an excellent performance on retention across all our businesses," it said Thursday.Analysts are looking for a profit before tax and exceptional items of between £112m and £117.7m. The average is £116.2m.In Britain, customer numbers at the end of February were 3% higher than a year ago and the full-year figure should be nearer 4%, it says. The UK retention rate will be at least 82.5% and policy numbers will be up about 6%.The number of customers in America is expected to have risen 50% in the 12 months to 13 March, with policies up 70%.A "highly cash generative" business has more than halved net debt from £52.9m to about £20m. LW