The Iomart Plc Board has approved an interim dividend of 1.94p per share (H1 2023: 1.94p) payable on 26 January 2024 to shareholders on the register on 5 January 2024, with an ex-dividend date of 4 January 2024. This interim dividend represents a pay-out ratio of 38% (H1 2023: 37%) of the adjusted diluted earnings per share for the period.
Other financial higthlights include:
Revenue grew 18%, with strong levels of recurring revenues maintained (94%1 of Group revenues). The Concepta and Extrinsica acquisitions provided £6.0m of additional revenue in the period
Cloud managed services revenue, the largest component of the Group, increased strongly, by 27% to £37.0m (H1 2023: £29.2m), from a combination of modest organic growth, price adjustments from last year's energy cost increases, plus approximately £4.3m contribution from the latest two acquisitions
Group EBITDA margin performance of 30.0% is a reduction from H1 2023 of 33.8% but it is slightly ahead of H2 2023 of 29.1%. This trend in margin performance reflects the change in revenue mix and specific timing of inflationary price adjustments during the last financial year
£0.8m higher interest expense in the period, due to rise in bank interest rates, means adjusted profit before tax in the period of £7.6m showed a more modest 3% growth
Cash conversion ratio of 90% is higher than the prior period (H1 2023: 81%) which had included the timing impact of some vendor payments overlapping period ends
Net debt of £48.0m (31 March 2023: £39.8m), comfortable at 1.3 times annualised EBITDA
