Stobart (STOB) may be making progress in each of its diverse logistics business lines, but the standout contribution in the six months to August was an old-fashioned, one-off property deal. In May, the company sold an investment property at Speke in Liverpool to Ford Motors for a cash consideration of £37m, booking a profit on disposal of £11.6m in addition to the £9.1m valuation gain recognised last year, when Stobart acquired the site. In turn, this contributed to the lion's share of the half-year earnings, and has paved the way for a 12p a share total payout for the 2017 financial year.
The company's other core divisions are also making headway. Underlying earnings in the biomass business ticked up on largely flat sales, while the lower-margin rail division' work pipeline now sits at £61m. Stobart also used these results to announce an agreement to operate up to 18 CityJet flights from April 2017, potentially boosting footfall to London Southend Airport by 600,000 passengers a year.
Prior to these results, analysts at Edison were forecasting pre-tax profit of £20.4m and EPS of 5.2p for the February 2017 year-end, against £20.6m and 5.9p in FY2016.
STOBART (STOB) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 158p | MARKET VALUE: | £544m | |
| TOUCH: | 156-158p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 180p | LOW: 95p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 4.4% | PE RATIO: | 32 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 118p* | NET DEBT: | 12% | |
| Half-year to 31 Aug | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p)^ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 57.6 | 0.61 | 0.4 | 2.0 |
| 2016 | 65.3 | 10.8 | 2.7 | 3.0 |
| % change | +13 | +1688 | +657 | +50 |
Ex-div: na^ Payment: na^ *Includes intangible assets of £110m, or 32p a share ^First-quarterly half-year dividend paid 7 October | ||||
