Proposed changes to how personal injury claims are dealt with decimated the market value of NAHL (NAH) in late 2015. These included compensating minor whiplash victims with medical care rather than cash, and increasing the small claims court limit from £1,000 to £5,000, meaning more claims will be processed via this low-cost, largely solicitor-free route. The National Accident Helpline operator, which passes on vetted personal injury claims to a panel of law firms in return for a small margin, scrambled to fine-tune and diversify its business in the first half of this year.
After purposefully reducing its caseload, revenues slumped by more than a third in the main personal injury business, but its focus on more lucrative claims and stringent cost control limited the decline in underlying operating profits to 7 per cent. Moreover, NAHL's budding conveyancing business increased organic sales and operating profits despite property market uncertainty around the EU referendum, and snapped up conveyancing specialist Searches UK in the period. Bush & Company, a critical-care services business acquired almost a year ago, outperformed with sales of £5.2m. Those gains widened the group's margin, sending adjusted operating profits up by almost a quarter to £8.8m.
Broker Investec expects adjusted pre-tax profits of £17.5m for the full year, giving EPS of 29.7p (up from £15.5m and 28.5p in 2015).
| NAHL (NAH) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 263p | MARKET VALUE: | £119m | |
| TOUCH: | 258-263p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 425p | LOW: 181p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 7.2% | PE RATIO: | 10 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 123p* | NET DEBT: | 17% | |
| Half-year to 30 Jun | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 25.4 | 6.4 | 12.5 | 6.25 |
| 2016 | 25.8 | 7.5 | 13.2 | 6.35 |
| % change | +1 | +17 | +6 | +2 |
Ex-div: 29 Sep Payment: 31 Oct *Includes intangible assets of £69.1m, or 153p a share | ||||
