25 June 2019 – final results
Results for the year ended 30 April 2019 have been released, with revenue up 6.2% to £745.5m (2018: £701.7m). Hire revenue growth was driven by double digit vehicles on hire growth and rental profit was £64.3m, up 22.6%. Underlying profit before tax was £61.1m (2018: £57.0m) which included the benefit of £15.3m from the net impact of depreciation rate changes, offset by the unwind of disposals. Underlying earnings per share were 38.7p versus 34.8p a year earlier. A final dividend of 12.1p per share (2018: 11.6p) took the total dividend payable for the year to 18.3p per share, an increase of 3.4% (2018: 17.7p). Free cash inflow of £20.4m benefitted from significantly lower total net capex of £243.9m (2018: £311.0m) driven by lower fleet growth and the fleet optimisation policy. Steady state cash generation was £67.1m (2018: £62.6m). Net debt of £436.9m at the year end gave leverage of 1.64x, well within the target range of between 1.5x and 2.5x. These are solid numbers and we keep our BUY rating.