RWS Holdings PLC (LON:RWS) announced US$41mln of new acquisitions and maintained its interim dividend despite a fall in sales and profits in the first half.
The translation and localisation group has agreed to acquire Ireland-based Iconic Translation Machines, a neural machine translation specialist, for up to US$20mln in cash and shares and India-based translation and localisation provider Webdunia.com for US$21mln cash.
Iconic, for which US$10mln cash is being paid up front with the rest in shares depending on performance over 28 months, made revenues of US$1.2mln and underlying profits (EBITDA) of US$23,000 last year.
Webdunia, which has offices in India, Thailand and the US, generated EBITDA of US$3.1mln on revenues of US$13.8mln for the year to March 31.
RWS, meanwhile, reported a 6.7% fall in profit before tax to £25.8mln for the six months to end-March on revenue down 1.6% to £169.7mln.
The group said there had been “limited impact on customer demand” from the coronavirus pandemic, with increased activity from its Moravia division’s large technology clients and health care clients working on vaccines and antibody testing, which was offset by some impact on IP services, including slower onboarding of new clients.
At the half-year, there was available banking facility headroom of US$120mln, while cash levels were up to £28.3mln from £27.4mln a year earlier.
With trading remaining “strong” in the two months of the second half, directors were confident to keep the half-year dividend unchanged at 1.75p per share.