Half year summary
- Revenue up 5% to £241.3m
- UK revenue reduced, as expected, by £7.3m to £127.2m
- International revenue up £20.5m to £116.8m
- Total customer numbers up 0.3m to 5.1m (HY2013: 4.8m)
- Overall policy retention rate up from 80% to 82%
- Free cash flow of £23.2m (HY2013: £10.3m) with net debt £40.7m (March 2013: £42.9m, September 2012: £78.1m)
- Statutory profit before tax includes additional exceptional expenditure of £19.0m (HY2013: nil) to complete the UK customer re-contact exercise
UK customer acquisition and retention rate increasing
- Gross new customers increased to 80k (HY2013: 40k)
- Retention rate up to 81% (HY2013: 78%) with higher levels of customer satisfaction
- Customer numbers at 31 March 2014 now expected to be around 2.0m
- Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigation is ongoing
International customer numbers up 25% to 2.9m
- USA customer numbers up 21% to 1.4m
- Spain customer numbers up 104% to 0.6m
- Doméo and USA retention rates increased
- Up 2 ppts to 89% in Doméo
- Up 1 ppts to 80% in the USA
- Five new affinity partners in the USA so far this year
JM Barry Gibson, Chairman, HomeServe plc, commented:
"HomeServe has made a positive start to FY2014 and this has given us increased confidence in our ability to deliver our current and medium term plans.
We expect UK customer numbers to stabilise from March 2014 and as we continue to develop and grow our International businesses, we expect the Group to return to modest growth in FY2015."
