Half yearly financial report for the 6 months ended 30 September 2016

The full announcement is available here

HIGHLIGHTS

Progress in our strategic priorities

• Delivering against our strategy of refocussing PayPoint on our retailers:
  • Following successful commercial trials, PayPoint One and Core EPoS were launched in September
  • Retail services including investment in rollout and support for PayPoint One and Core EPoS, increasing in the second half
• MultiPay transactions (3 million), up 38.1%; 14 clients contracted. SSE live ahead of customer rollout in 2017
• Collect+ discussions with Yodel and Mobile sale process both progressing

Financial results

• Retail services net revenue growth of 14.7% but bill payments growth has moderated
• Revenue reduced by 1.1% as a result of the sale of Online, offset by growth in Retail and Mobile
• Adjusted operating profits² increased by 15.6% driven by growth from Romania and Mobile and deferral of costs
• Strong balance sheet with cash of £49.6 million and undrawn credit facility of £45 million
• Increase in interim dividend by 5.6% to 15.0p per share
• Commencement of additional dividend of 12.2p per share as announced in full year results 

Operations

• Retail network transaction volumes down 1.9% to 307.1 million due to bill and general and top-up decline in the UK offset by growth in retail services and Romania
• Strong growth in Romania bill payment transactions up by 11.7% to 32.6 million, sites up by 12.7% to 10,662
• Collect+ parcels increase 5.7% to 10.5 million
• Mobile payments business transaction volumes up 27.5% to 30.0 million
• Total retail network sites increased  to 39,635 and Collect+ sites to 5,960 

Dominic Taylor, Chief Executive of PayPoint, said:

“Overall results are in line with our expectations. As set out in our last full year results announcement, this year is proving to be pivotal as we change the focus of the organisation towards our retailers. In the first half, the commercial trial of our new PayPoint One terminal and Core EPoS were successfully concluded with the official launch in September. The platform has been well received and will enable us to drive further growth in retail services which is central to our strategy. Whilst we will continue to improve the client offering, our main development focus will continue on enhanced versions of our new EPoS product and implementing organisational improvements and process efficiencies to improve our retailer offering.

Looking ahead to the second half, we expect to rollout PayPoint One to achieve around 4,000 sites by the end of the financial year, to develop Advanced EPoS and to step up our installations of ATMs and card payment, requiring increased costs as expected, to deliver our full year results. Trading since 30 September has been in line with our expectations.”

Enquiries

PayPoint plc
Steve O'Neill
Group Marketing Director

+44(0)1707 600 440
[email protected]

PayPoint Press Office
Finsbury

+44(0)207 251 3801
[email protected]

A presentation for analysts is being held at 11.45am today (24 November 2016) at Finsbury Group, Tenter House, 45 Moorfields London EC2Y 9AE
 

The full announcement is available here

¹ Net revenue is revenue less the cost of mobile top-ups (where PayPoint is principal), SIM cards and other costs incurred by PayPoint which are recharged to clients and merchants. These costs include retail agent commission, card payment merchant service charges and costs for the provision of call centres for PayByPhone.

² Adjusted operating profit before impairment includes our share of joint venture results.

³ Adjusted earnings per share is stated before the £18.2 million online payments impairment recognised in the prior period.

Net revenue, operating profit before impairment and adjusted earnings per share are measures the directors believe will assist shareholders with a better understanding of the underlying performance of the group.