Haynes drives upward as UK and Europe fuel revenue growth

Haynes Publishing Group shot upwards on Thursday after reporting that interim revenue growth was driven by a strong performance in the UK and Europe.

For the six-month period ended 30 November, the car manual publishing firm's revenue came in at £18.3m, up 7% on the same period of the year before, as UK and European revenues increased by 15% to £12.9m, offsetting a 4% drop in North American and Australian sales.

The latter followed Haynes' decision to exit from its "low margin" Australian print business.

Eddie Bell, chairman of Haynes Group, said: "During the first six months of 2018/19, the group delivered another strong set of results as we continue to build and grow our global automotive content, data and solutions business. A solid performance from our underlying operations resulted in the seventh consecutive six-month period of headline revenue growth."

The increase in revenue drove adjusted EBITDA up by 15% to £6.3m but profit before tax fell by 83% to £0.2m after performance was impacted by a jump in one-off costs from £0.2m to £1.4m due to a change in the recognition of the London-listed company's pension liabilities, though it has since closed its defined benefit pension scheme.

Excluding the impact of one-off costs, adjusted profits before tax increased to £1.6m from £1.3m.

At 30 November cash and cash equivalents stood at £5.1m, up from £4.3m at the same point last year, while Haynes' interim dividend was unchanged at 3.5 pence per share.

"Our continued investment in content, data and platforms is helping to drive a range of new initiatives across the group that enables us to supply our customers with high quality, innovative commercial solutions to improve their service offering and business efficiency," said Bell.

Expectations for the full-year remain intact and the company said it plans to grow the business through product development, geographical expansion and "where the opportunity arises, strategic acquisition".

Haynes Publishing's shares were up 16.10% at 187.50p at 1623 GMT.