Now that payment services business PayPoint (PAY) has disposed of its troublesome online and mobile payments businesses, the impact is clear to see. Spared a repeat of the £49m impairment charge the group took last year, pre-tax profits rocketed from £8.36m last year to £69.1m. Proceeds from the £26.5m sale have been paid out via two special dividends - the second worth 38.9p a share will be paid this year - while the group is proposing an additional dividend of 24.5p as well. In total, this takes the trailing dividend yield north of 11 per cent.
The group launched its latest point-of-sale terminal, known as PayPoint One, in June last year and has been growing its network rapidly. It had been rolled out to 3,600 sites by the end of March, rising out to 4,227 at the time the results hit the market. Management is aiming to reach 8,000 by the end of the 2017/18 financial year. PayPoint has tweaked the arrangement for Collect+, its parcel collection service too. It will reduce the parcel fees paid by partner Yodel by £3m over three years from December 2016 and, in return, is free to open its network to other carriers.