International Personal Finance slumps as it posts 20% drop in profit

Consumer credit lender International Personal Finance tanked on Wednesday as it reported a 20% drop in full-year pre-tax profit.

For the year to the end of December, profit before tax and exceptional items fell to £92.6m from £116.2m, reflecting a combination of lower home credit profit and higher investment in IPF Digital, offset partially by strengthening FX rates.

Home credit underlying profit before tax declined to £116.8m from £134.9m. The drop was attributed to three issues: the introduction of new total cost of credit legislation in Poland, higher levels of impairment in Mexico following a first half performance which was below the group's expectations, and the wind-down of its Slovakian operation.

IPF said these issues were offset partially by strong profit growth in Southern Europe.

Credit issued was up 8.1% in the year but the number of customers fell 1.6% to 2.5m.

Revenue for the full year rose to £755.9m from £698.8m and the company proposed a final dividend of 7.8p per share, taking the full-year dividend to 12.4p, in line with the previous year.

Chief executive Gerard Ryan said: "It has been a difficult year for our company and its shareholders. We delivered continued strong growth in Southern Europe and IPF Digital but faced further regulatory challenges in Europe, particularly in Poland.

"Performance in our Mexican home credit business was below our original expectations but actions taken delivered a significantly improved performance in the second half of the year. We expect the competitive and regulatory environment to remain challenging but we continue to see further opportunities to optimise our European home credit operations and will utilise the returns generated by these businesses to invest in growing Mexico home credit and IPF Digital."

At 0904 GMT, the shares were down 8.9% to 165.29p.