St Ives (SIV) made further strides in rebalancing its business mix away from traditional print and towards marketing services in the first half. Marketing made up 35 per cent of underlying group operating profit, and St Ives says it is on track to get this figure up to over 50 per cent by 2016. Revenue from the services, which have included creating a new customer database for Eurostar and a new website for Pizza Hut, jumped by a half to £46.7m. Contributions from recent acquisitions made up a large chunk of that, but organic growth was still a commendable 14 per cent.
Marketing services is clearly the future, with chief executive Patrick Martell saying St Ives will "continue to seek acquisitions in the sector. But a respectable performance from the print business suggests we shouldn’t write it off just yet. Underlying print revenues slipped 7 per cent to £122m, but that was due to the disposal of the direct mail business. Strip that out and revenues were up 2 per cent. Print margins also rose as a focus on higher-margin projects rather than mass-market commoditised work paid off.
Broker N+1 Singer has upgraded its full-year pre-tax profit forecast by 3 per cent to £29m to reflect the acquisition of marketing services business Realise just prior to the results, giving earnings per share of 17.4p (from £25.9m/15.6p in 2013).
| ST IVES (SIV) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 202p | MARKET VALUE: | £244m | |
| TOUCH: | 201-204p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 200p | LOW: 122p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 3.3% | PE RATIO: | 22 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 119p* | NET DEBT: | 9% | |
| Half-year to 31 Jan | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 167 | 1.2 | 0.2 | 2 |
| 2014 | 168 | 6.2 | 5.9 | 2.15 |
| % change | - | +415 | - | +8 |
Ex-div: 9 Apr Payment: 14 May *Includes intangible assets of £120m, or 99p a share | ||||
