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16 November 2009
Preliminary Announcement of Final Results for the year ended
30 September 2009
| Audited | Audited | ||||||||
| 2009 | 2008 | ||||||||
| Continuing Businesses(1) | £m | £m | |||||||
| Revenue | 160.0 | 156.2 | |||||||
| Operating profit(2) | 25.6 | 26.6 | |||||||
| Operating margin(2) | 16.0% | 17.0% | |||||||
| Adjusted profit before tax(2), (3) | 25.5 | 26.8 | |||||||
| Profit before tax | 20.5 | 21.1 | |||||||
| Free cash flow | 23.5 | 17.7 | |||||||
| Continuing Businesses(1) | Pence | Pence | |||||||
| Adjusted earnings per share(2), (3) | 14.8 | 16.0 | |||||||
| Basic earnings per share | 10.8 | 11.4 | |||||||
| Total dividends per share | 7.8 | 7.5 | |||||||
| Free cash flow per share | 20.8 | 15.6 | |||||||
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- Continuing revenue increased by 2% and operating profit reduced by 4%; operating margins held to a creditable 16%.
- Underlying revenue and operating profits decreased 12% and ca. 10% respectively, after adjusting for currency effects, acquisitions and one-off items.
- Operating businesses reacted quickly to scale back operating costs; total headcount and monthly salary cost reduced by 10% and 6% respectively, since beginning of year.
- Tight management of working capital delivered strong free cash flow, up 33% to £23.5m; net cash funds of £21.3m (2008: £15.7m) at year end.
- Contracts exchanged shortly after year end for disposal of Manual Liquid Handling business of Anachem Limited for maximum cash proceeds of £8.6m (Anachem now treated as discontinuing business).
- Total dividends up 4% to 7.8p (2008: 7.5p).
Commenting on the results for the year, Bruce Thompson, Diploma's Chief Executive said:
"The Group has delivered a resilient revenue and profit performance together with exceptionally strong free cash flow. We anticipate that 2010 will continue to be challenging and we are not planning for early recovery in trading activity. We remain confident however in the resilience of the Group's model and the strength of its cash flow. We believe the Group is well positioned to benefit from any market recovery".
Notes:
Diploma PLC uses alternative performance measures as key financial indicators to assess the underlying performance of the Group. These include adjusted profit before tax, adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow. The narrative in this Announcement is based on these alternative measures and an explanation is set out in note 2 to the consolidated financial statements in this Preliminary Announcement.
| For further enquiries please contact: | |
| Bruce Thompson, Chief Executive Officer | 020 7549 5700 |
| Nigel Lingwood, Group Finance Director | 020 7549 5705 |
| Simon Bloomfield, Bankside Consultants | 020 7367 8861 |
NOTE TO EDITORS:
Diploma PLC is an international group of businesses supplying specialised technical products and services to the Life Sciences, Seals and Controls industries.
Diploma achieves stable growth and attractive margins from its focus on supplying specialised technical products to markets which value high levels of customer service, technical support and value adding activities. A high proportion of revenues are generated from essential products and services funded by operating, rather than capital budgets.
The Group employs ca. 800 employees and its principal operating businesses are located in the UK, Germany, US and Canada.
In the last five years ended 30 September 2009, the Group has grown adjusted earnings per share at an average of ca. 16% p.a. through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions. The current market capitalisation is ca. £190m.
Further information on Diploma PLC, together with a copy of this Announcement, is available at www.diplomaplc.com