Results round-up

Shares in Admiral raced ahead on Thursday after the insurer posted a forecast-beating and record 6% jump in full year pre-tax profit as its car insurance customers grew.

For the year to the end of December, pre-tax profit rose to £377m from £357m in 2014 as customer numbers grew 9% to 4.43m.

Car insurance customers rose 14% to 673,000 and the UK car insurance business increased profits by 11% to £443m.

Earnings per share were up 4% at 107.3p and the company – which owns comparison website confused.com – lifted its full year dividend by 16% to 114.4p per share.

RBC Capital Markets said profit was ahead of its estimate of £350.7m, while the dividend was also better than its forecast for 103.1p and substantially stronger than consensus expectations of 97.3p.

Admiral’s combined operating ratio strengthened to 85.6% from 86.5% in 2014.

Chief executive officer Henry Engelhardt said: “I would describe 2015 as: the year of the uncut diamond. When the year started many people thought it would turn out to be a lump of coal. But no, 2015 was no lumpy coal year."

Satellite communications provider Inmarsat posted a drop in full year profit amid weak global government spending.

In the year to the end of December, pre-tax profit slid 17.3% to $282m (£200m) on flat revenues of $1.27bn.

Total revenue from government, meanwhile, was down 10.4% from 2014 to $286.6m.

Inmarsat said operational budgets and activity levels are key drivers of governments' expenditure on commercial satellite services, and both of these continue to exert downward pressure on satellite operators' revenues and margins.

In the US, budget challenges continue and contingency rather than baseline funding remains the key driver of commercial satellite expenditure.

Still, Inmarsat said demand for satellite communications services continues to be strong in certain key areas of operations, with spending there holding up or even increasing.

“In other developed country government markets similar budget pressures, and the volatility of short-term operational requirements, also dominate the satellite spend. But in these countries too, the demand for connectivity is increasing and there are areas of growth in a generally adverse environment,” it said.

On the bright side, aviation revenue was up $25.7m to $126.8m, and the company proposed a final dividend increase of 5% to 31.78 cents a share.

Chief executive Rupert Pearce said: “2015 has been another year of solid achievement during a period of transition as we bring our Global Xpress services to market and establish our new European Aviation Network."