UK funeral director Dignity delivered a 5.7 per cent rise in underlying profits to £64.5m, impressively achieved against a 53-week comparative period, and despite the continuing fall in the UK annual death rate.
The standout performance came from Dignity's 'pre-arranged funeral' business. This is the smallest of Dignity's three business segments, contributing around 10 per cent of overall revenues and 7 per cent of operating profits, but is growing more quickly than the more mature core funeral and crematoria divisions - last year it grew the number of unfulfilled pre-arranged funeral plans by 11 per cent to 265,000.
Dignity expanded its core funeral services' segment by adding an additional 33 locations through the year, bringing the nationwide network to 600 and helping to keep its funerals market share steady at 11.3 per cent. The crematoria segment completed construction on a brace of sites, while growing underlying profits by 7 per cent to £21.3m. More importantly, volumes were up by 5.3 per cent to 47,600 cremations, as market share increased by 70 basis points to 8.8 per cent, with average revenue per cremation up by 5.2 per cent.
Broker Panmure Gordon expects 2012 EPS of 59.8p (from 55.1p last year).
| DIGNITY (DTY) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 816p | MARKET VALUE: | £447m | |
| TOUCH: | 809-812p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 857p | LOW: 688p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 1.8% | PE RATIO: | 13 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 31p** | NET DEBT: | £313m | |
| Year to 30 Dec | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 160 | 30.2 | 34.4 | 10.0 |
| 2008 | 176 | 35.4 | 38.8 | 11.0 |
| 2009 | 185 | 37.5 | 41.8 | 12.1 |
| 2010 | 199 | 39.8 | 46.9 | 8.88* |
| 2011 | 210 | 40.3 | 62.6 | 14.6 |
| % change | +6 | +1 | +33 | +65 |
Ex-div:23 May Payment:29 Jun *No interim dividend paid separately in 2010, but included in the £1 return of value per ord paid in Oct 2010 **Includes intangible assets of £194m, or 355p a share | ||||
