In keeping with Quartix’s (QTX) heightened focus on its core fleet market over lower-margin insurance opportunities, fleet sales for the year ending December 2018 rose by a tenth to £18.8m. Correspondingly, insurance revenues dropped by 7 per cent to £7m.
The fleet subscription base increased by 17 per cent to 123,157 units, underpinned by a 46 per cent rise in the US to 13,133 and a 43 per cent rise in France to 18,803. Meanwhile, the UK base grew by a relatively meagre 10 per cent – albeit to a sizeable 91,221. And, encouragingly, second-half UK fleet installations declined by just 6 per cent – an improvement from 14 per cent in the first half.
True, free cash flow slipped by just over a tenth to £5.6m, and cash from operations fell 3 per cent to £6.8m, but management explained that Quartix receives cash up-front for insurance units; thus, a reduction in the number of installations (down 29 per cent) constitutes a knock-on effect.
House broker FinnCap expects pre-tax profits of £6.1m and EPS of 10.8p in 2019 (from £8.1m and 14.4p in 2018).
| QUARTIX (QTX) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 245p | MARKET VALUE: | £117m | |
| TOUCH: | 240-250p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 381p | LOW: 220p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.5% | PE RATIO: | 17 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 36p* | NET CASH: | £6.8m | |
| Year to 31 Dec | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2014 | 15.3 | 5.0 | 8.7 | 3.0 |
| 2015 | 19.7 | 6.0 | 10.7 | 6.0 |
| 2016** | 23.3 | 6.5 | 12.9 | 6.5 |
| 2017** | 24.5 | 6.6 | 12.3 | 6.7 |
| 2018** | 25.7 | 8.1 | 14.4 | 6.2 |
| % change | +5 | +22 | +17 | -7 |
| Ex-div: | 04 Apr | |||
| Payment: | 03 May | |||
*Includes intangible assets of £14m, or 29p a share **Excludes special dividends including 6.2p special declared on 25 February 2019. 2017 numbers have also been restated to reflect new accounting rules IFRS 15 | ||||
