(Alliance News) - DCC PLC on Tuesday reported a jump in annual profit, due to volume growth in its DCC LPG and DCC Retail & Oil businesses, leading the firm to lift its dividend.
DCC is a Dublin-based sales, marketing and support services company.
It reported a pretax profit of GBP405.7 million in the year ended March 31, reflecting an 11% increase compared to GBP365.1 million the year before.
This was on "very strong growth" in revenue to GBP17.73 billion, 32% higher year-on-year from GBP13.41 billion.
The company credited this to increased energy commodity prices and a recovery in energy volumes across its DCC LPG and DCC Retail & Oil businesses.
Its DCC Retail & Oil business, which operates unmanned retail petrol stations in Europe, increased volumes by 14% to 11.6 billion litres due to a robust recovery in "commercial, retail and fuel card volumes, which had been adversely impacted by Covid-19 restrictions in the prior year."
Volumes in DCC LPG, DCC's liquid petroleum gas sales and marketing business, grew by 16% to 2.6 million tonnes, also driven by the loosening of Covid restrictions, and acquisitions completed during the year in the US and Ireland.
On the back of this healthy growth, the FTSE 100-listed firm lifted its final dividend by 11% to 119.93 pence per share from 107.85p. This brought its total dividend for financial 2022 to 175.78p, 10% higher compared to 159.80p a year prior.
Looking ahead, DCC expects financial 2023 to be another year of profitable growth and development, despite the current economic challenges.
"I am very pleased that DCC has delivered an excellent performance in a challenging macro environment, with profit growth across each of our divisions, again demonstrating the resilience of our business," Chief Executive Donal Murphy said.
"We are ambitious to build DCC into a global leader in our chosen sectors. We have the platforms, opportunities and capability to do so. Although the world is experiencing a particularly volatile period and supply chain disruption is elevated, DCC is well positioned to grow and develop with momentum."
Shares were trading 2.9% higher at 6,448.00 pence each on Tuesday morning in London.
By Abby Amoakuh; abbyamoakuh@alliancenews.com
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DCC (DCC)