Tribal Group, a public sector support services firm, has posted an upbeat set of results for the year ended December 31st and revealed 2013 is off to a good start.
Revenue rose seven per cent during the period, up from £105.8m to £113.4m year-on-year on an adjusted basis.
Adjusted pre-tax profit for the period totalled £12.8m, up 27% from £10.1m the previous year, while diluted earnings per share came to 10.9p (2011: 8.4p).
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John Ormerod, Chairman, said: "Tribal is trading well, and we have a number of growth initiatives underway which offer good potential. Our systems and solutions remain strong in their UK markets, and we are seeing increasing momentum for our offerings in international markets, both those in which we currently operate and selected potential new markets. As a result, we continue to make good progress towards our strategic target of doubling earnings per share over the three-year period ending December 31st 2014.
"Our current trading is in line with our expectations for 2013. As a consequence of seasonality in our business, and our continued programme of investment, we anticipate our profits in 2013 will be weighted towards the second half of the year, and Tribal has good potential to make further progress over the medium-term."
During the 12 month period the company increased its level on investment to £6.2m from £3.6m in 2011 as part of its programme of investment in new software development, which has targeted both its major education management systems and software tools within its evidence-based education improvement solutions.
Looking ahead, the company expects to continue to invest strongly in new software development during 2013, as technology becomes a core component of all its major systems and solutions.
The firm now plans to explore entry into additional new markets and the use of third party system implementation partners into these markets to enable rapid scale and flexible local capabilities.
Net debt declined 38% from £16.0m to £9.9m. The group increased its total dividend per share for the year by 0.25p to 1.25p.
The share price climbed 5.38% to 137p by 13:08 Thursday.
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