The first full year of trading for Tavistock Investments PLC (LON:TAVI) as a financial services group saw the group perform “substantially ahead” of market expectations.
Group revenues in the year to 31 March 2016 totalled £29.85mln, some £10mln ahead of the figure the group’s joint broker WH IRELAND had forecast as recently as April 2016.
The group has changed its year-end, so the comparative figures are for a 15 month period and show a sharp increase from revenues of £5.0mln.
Adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA) improved to £103,000 from a loss in the 15 months to the end of March 2015 of £352,000. Adjusted EBITDA was £800,000 ahead of WH IRELAND’s forecast.
Loss before tax widened to £2.77mln from £985,000 the year before, as the company took a £1.42mln hit on acquisition related costs.
The group said it saw a marked improvement in the second half of the year and all of its operating businesses are now trading profitably. Executive chairman Oliver Cooke said it was reasonable to expect the improvement in performance to accelerate in the current financial year.
The group has in excess of £4bn of assets under influence and Tavistock Wealth has more than £460mln of assets under management.
Tavistock said the Brexit vote had unsettled markets, but its investment portfolios continue to perform well, largely due to their asset class diversification and currency hedging.
“Tavistock has emerged from a period of consolidation more successful than ever, moving into profitability and increasing total revenue by a significant margin. We have exceeded market expectations and now look ahead to what I am confident will be another highly successful financial year,” said Brian Raven, the group’s chief executive.
“We intend to improve our service even further as we implement our new software support system. We also continue to have several significant growth opportunities, both organic and acquisitive, and we are well placed to take advantage of these,” he added.
The group is not able to pay a dividend at present as it must have distributable reserves to do so; the board plans in the near future to begin the court process of offsetting accumulated losses against the credit balance on the share premium account, after which it will revisit its previously stated aim to establish a dividend stream for shareholders.
Shares in Tavistock rose 10.2% to 7p in early trading.