Results round-up: Kingfisher, Savills, Ferrexpo, Softcat

Annual results from retailer Kingfisher beat the City's profit forecasts thanks to strong growth from its Screwfix chain, but while the transformation of B&Q and French businesses continued, sales began to slow in the second half amid concerns of a consumer slowdown.

For the year to 31 January adjusted sales rose 8.7% to £11.2bn, helped by currency effects, with UK & Ireland sales up 2.4% or 5.9% on a like-for-like basis.

But while total adjusted sales in constant currencies rose 2.7% in the first six months, growth slowed to 1.7% for the full year, while UK & Ireland LFL sales in constant currencies were up 3.1% in the first they were down to 2.4% for the full year.

While there was some uncertainty expressed over the looming French election and Britain's exit from the EU, management remain confident in their £500m target uplift in operating profit by January 2021 and the return of a further £400m of capital by the year ending January 2019 via share buyback.

With chairman Daniel Bernard announcing that he will retire in June, the FTSE 100 group has appointed ex InterContinental Hotels and Fitness First CEO Andy Cosslett, somewhat of a specialist in transformational and cultural change, as the new boardroom overseer.

Chief executive Véronique Laury hailed the achievement of growing sales and profit alongside delivering the first year of strategic milestones of her five-year 'One Kingfisher' transformation plan to create a "unified company where customer needs come first".

Savills

International real estate advisor Savills announced “record results” for the year to 31 December on Wednesday, with group revenue up 13% to £1.45bn, or £1.36bn in constant currency.

The FTSE 250 firm said underlying profit was up 12% to £135.8m, or £126.8m in constant currency, while group profit before tax improved 1%.

Its underlying profit margin remained stable at 9.4%, compared to 9.5% in 2015.

Underlying basic earnings per share were up 15% to 72.5p.

The board confirmed that total dividends for the year were up 12% to 29p per share. It said the total ordinary dividend was up 21% to 14.5p, and the supplementary dividend up 3.6% to 14.5p.

“Overall, Savills delivered another record performance in 2016 despite the geopolitical distractions in some of our markets,” said group chief executive Jeremy Helsby.

“We benefited from the scale of our operations across the globe, which have grown substantially over recent years, as well as a highly resilient performance in the UK.”

Helsby said the company’s “less transactional” businesses, particularly property management and investment management, grew strongly while its global transaction advisory business produced a solid performance despite variable conditions in many markets.

Ferrexpo

Iron ore miner Ferrexpo said it was resuming dividend payments after increasing net cash flows by more than 1.5 times to $332m.

The company, which has assets in Ukraine, said it would pay a final ordinary dividend of 3.3 cents a share along with a 3.3 cent a share special dividend.

Full year pre-tax profits at the Swiss-based miner were $231m compared to $25m in 2015.

Profit from continuing operations rose to $189m from $31m. Earnings per share jumped to 31.91 cents from 5.63.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 20% to $375m as a result of increased turnover and lower costs. Net debt to EBITDA for the last 12 months was 1.57x compared to 2.78x.

“The iron ore pellet industry continues to have high barriers to entry given the capital intensity of new investment while demand for high grade ore, including pellet, remains strong,” the company said.

"The average 62% Fe iron ore fines price in 1Q 2017 (as of 20 March 2017) was approximately $86 per tonne compared to the average of US$58 per tonne in 2016, while Ferrexpo's average pellet premium for 2017 is expected to be in line with the PLATTS Atlantic long-term contract pellet premium less adjustments for quality."

Softcat

IT infrastructure provider Softcat said interim pre-tax profits rose to £20.9m from £15.4m on the back of a 28.9% jump in revenues to £378.5m thanks to double-digit growth in software, hardware and services.

Gross profits were up 14% to £61.3m. The interim dividend was lifted 70% to 2.9p a share as the company said it was confident of meeting expectations for the full year.

Customer numbers rose 8.7%, the fastest rate of customer growth since the first half of 2014, reflecting the investment in the sales force over the past 18 months.

“The acceleration in underlying growth reflects continued execution against our strategy of growing the customer base and selling more products and services to existing customers,” Softcat said.