Experian’s (EXPN) consumer services division has been the poor relation to its expanding business-to-business operations in recent years – the first-half may represent a turning point. Organic revenue growth for the former came in at 5 per cent – compared with a 5 per cent contraction during the last financial year – as efforts to broaden and improve the product range started to pay off. In fact, management expects momentum in organic revenue generation to continue, anticipating full-year growth for the information group at the top of the 6 to 8 per cent guided range.
However, business-to-business operations continued to be the main driver of organic sales, with Europe, the Middle East and Africa/Asia Pacific leading the way. It launched big data platform Ascend – which provides clients with access to historic credit data – into those regions and pushed further into India, South Africa and southeast Asia. Contract wins for credit services and decisioning software in the utilities and banking sector helped boost like-for-like revenue 5 per cent by in the UK and Ireland.
A sharp devaluation in some Latin American currencies against the US dollar wiped 11 per cent off sales in the region and dampened the group’s statutory pre-tax profits. Despite the economic uncertainty in Latin American economies, the division still managed 4 per cent like-for-like sales growth at constant rates.
Analysts at JPMorgan expect pre-tax profits of $1.2bn during the year to March 2019, giving EPS of 99¢ (from $1.2bn and 92¢ in 2018).
| EXPERIAN (EXPN) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 1,868.5p | MARKET VALUE: | £17bn | |
| TOUCH: | 1,868-1,869p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 1,994p | LOW: 1,495p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 1.9% | PE RATIO: | 28 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 250¢* | NET DEBT: | 153% | |
| Half-year to 30 Sep | Turnover ($bn) | Pre-tax profit ($m) | Earnings per share (¢) | Dividend per share (¢) |
| 2017 | 2.21 | 495 | 39.7 | 13.5 |
| 2018 | 2.36 | 470 | 35.3 | 14.0 |
| % change | +7 | -5 | -11 | +4 |
| Ex-div: | 3 Jan | |||
| Payment: | 1 Feb | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of $5.7bn, or 628¢ a share | ||||
