Restore drops as shredding worries distract from double-digit earnings growth

Restore’s shares stumbled on Monday after the company’s shredding business experienced lower volumes than budgeted over the course of the year.

Aside from Restore Datashred, the UK office services provider’s immediate onsite shredding solution and one of two main operators in the country, the AIM-listed company reported that, overall, it would achieve its ninth successive year of double-digit earnings growth.

Earnings growth was reportedly driven by the records management arm, which comprises most of the group's profit, while TNT Business Solutions, which was acquired in May 2018, performed in line with expectations.

Meanwhile Restore Digital performed satisfactorily, Restore Harrow Green achieved year-on-year growth in revenue and profit, and Restore Technology “continued to increase its presence in what remains a fragmented and immature market”.

Charles Skinner, chief executive of Restore, said: "I am pleased that the final set of results under my leadership will show further strong year-on-year growth in revenue, profits and earnings per share. Restore is a well-invested business which has leading positions in attractive and coherent markets. It has an excellent platform for further profitable growth with good visibility of earnings."

Even so, the underwhelming performance of the shredding business, as well as the presence of bad debts, caused broker Liberum to slash its profit before tax estimates by 5%, while EPS forecasts for 2019 and 2020 were also cut.

"The strong performance seen in the Shredding business in 2Q18 did not continue into 2H18, and instead appears to have been a one-off windfall associated with the introduction of GDPR in April 2018," said a note from Liberum.

Restore’s shares were down 10.34% at 347.00p at 0854 GMT.