Results round-up
Support services provider Mears saw pre-tax profits improve throughout the first half of its trading year despite reporting a decline in revenue.
The Bristol-based firm turned in an adjusted pre-tax profit of £19m for the six months leading to 30 June, a 3.83% increase year-on-year, while revenues fell 7.54% to £435.3m.
Earnings per share improved 6% to 10.44p.
Operating margins increased to 4.7% from the 4.1% seen a year earlier, driven by the improving profitability of Mears' care division.
Mears also revealed a strong current bid pipeline of over £2.8bn for 2018, significantly higher than normal levels and including two opportunities that are "very large in scale".
The firm said it remains "cautiously optimistic" of a successful outcome.
Mears felt it had delivered a "solid performance" across the half and is confident of making further progress throughout the year, in line with its expectations, and for the long-term.
"Our financial and market position is robust as we seek to build on existing strengths and take advantage of new opportunities," said chief executive David Miles.
"Mears is evolving its services, especially in the areas of housing management and development, to align fully with customer demand and to provide additional growth opportunities that will add to shareholder value over time," he added.
Capital & Regional saw the net asset value of its seven shopping centres dip in the first half of the year and said it expects full year dividend growth to be at the low end of its target range.
Valuation of the group's wholly-owned portfolio of £883.4m at 30 June was 0.4% lower in the six months from December, with net asset value per share of 66p, which was down 2.9% over six months.
The dip in the value of the portfolio led to a total revaluation loss, net of capex and joint ventures, of £12.4m, resulting in a near halving of IFRS profit for the period to £6.7m from £12.1m.
But Capital & Regional, which owns shopping malls in Blackburn, Hemel Hempstead, Ilford, Luton, Maidstone, Walthamstow and Wood Green and has a 20% joint venture share of the Kingfisher Centre in Redditch, said if you excluded property revaluations and exceptional items, adjusted profits were up 6.9% to £15.5m, with adjusted earnings per share up 4.4% to 2.15p.
Net rental income on its seven core centres of £26.0m was £1m higher than the same period a year ago, thanks to like for like rental growth of 1.3%. Contracted rent of £62.3m was little changed from a year ago, as 44 new lettings and renewals were completed in the period at a combined average premium of 3.4% to previous passing rent and a 3.3% premium to estimated rental value.
The board hiked the interim dividend 5.2% to 1.82p per share and chief executive Lawrence Hutchings said that given the short-term impact of recent profile retail wobbles, CVAs and administration, the board expects full year dividend growth in 2018 to be at the low end of its medium-term target range of 5-8% per year.
"We remain confident that the combination of our in-house expertise and the strength and affordability of our underlying assets will enable us to successfully remerchandise and evolve our centres to maintain positive momentum," said Hutchings, adding that his cost efficiency programme was "on track" to meet the 2016 target of at least £1.8m of annualised savings by the end of this year.