Christie Group profit boosted by international operations

In the year to 31 December 2018, pre-tax profit rose to £3.6m from £3.1m the year before as revenue increased 6.3% to £76.1m, mostly thanks to the international business. Earnings per share came in at 11.23p from 9.47p in 2017 and the total dividend was boosted to 3p a share from 2.75p.

The Professional & Financial Services division enjoyed a strong performance, with operating profit edging up to £5.6m from £5.3m the year before and revenue of £43.5m, up from £40.7m. In the Stock & Inventory Systems & Services division, revenue rose to £32.7m from £31m and the operating loss narrowed to £0.7m from £1.1m.

Chairman and chief executive David Rugg said: "2018 was a year of solid performance. Currently, the uncertainty surrounding Brexit is causing UK transaction related activity to slow. We do have, however, an increased pipeline of transactions.

"We fully expect these to flow through to completed assignments once investors have more certainty of the Brexit outcome. We expect the second half to be our stronger performance."

At 1305 BST, the shares were up 1% at 97.95p.