Adding to its army of energy consultants helped drive first half sales and profits at utility cost management consultancy Utilitywise (LON:UTW).
The six months to the end of January saw revenue rise 42% to £29.9mln from £21.0mln a year earlier, while adjusted profit before tax shot up 49% to £7.3mln from £4.9mln.
The number of energy consultants on board at the end of the reporting period stood at 449, up from 347 a year earlier.
The interim dividend has been bumped up by 55% to 1.7p from 1.1p the year before, as a signal of confidence in the business’s prospects.
At the end of March, the group’s secured revenue pipeline stood at £26mln and the number of customers at 23,109.
“We are confident about the future prospects of the business and we have started the second half well, in particular in meeting our targets to increase consultant headcount and to acquire new customers. Our second half performance will be predicated on the continuation of this momentum,” the company said.
In a separate announcement the company said it has acquired Cloud-based business energy management systems firm t-mac Technologies for an initial consideration of £10mln, of which £6.25mln is payable in cash, with the rest to be satisfied through the issue of shares.
The acquisition will provide Utilitywise with the ability to provide new subscription services to its customers as part of a complete utility management plan, covering procurement, management, monitoring, and reduction of electricity, gas and water.
House broker and nominated adviser finnCap is forecasting profit before tax will grow by 144% over the next three years.
Based on its end-July 2016 earnings per share forecast, the stock currently trades on a projected multiple of around 8.0 and offers a dividend yield of 3.8%, the broker noted, as it set a price target of 335p.
The shares currently trade at 220p, up 6% on the day.