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Morses Club feels the benefit of last year's territory builds

Published: 03:08 04 Oct 2018 EDT

Money lender
Morses Club is the second largest UK Home Collected Credit (HCC) lender in the UK

Doorstep lender Morses Club Plc (LON:MCL) has hiked its interim dividend by 18.2% on the back of strong growth in profits.

The interim pay-out has been cranked up to 2.6p from 2.2p following an increase in adjusted profit before tax of 20.6% to £10.5mln in the 26 weeks to August 25 from £8.7mln in the comparable period of 2017.

READ: Morses Club expands its existing loan facility by £15mln to fund further territory growth

Statutory revenue increased by 6.0% to £57.5mln from £54.2mln the year before. On a like for like (LFL), pro forma basis, revenue was up 11.9%.

The net loan book stood at £68.0mln, up 8.4% on a like-for-like pro forma basis from a year earlier.

Bad debts as a percentage of revenue for the first half of the lender’s fiscal year rose to 21.9% from 21.5% (pro forma) the year before.

Customer numbers eased a tad to 230,000 from 233,000 a year earlier.

“The success of last year's territory builds has been demonstrated in the first half of this financial year. Our focus on successful integration, the sustainable growth of the loan book and high-quality lending has resulted in a robust performance across all of our key financial metrics and delivered significant earnings growth for investors,” said Paul Smith, the chief executive officer of Morses.

"We expect to benefit from further consolidation as regulatory changes force smaller players out of the market, along with the opportunity to broaden our customer base as we offer customers a greater choice of products to suit their needs going forward,” he added.

The share price of Morses rose 0.8% to 142.58 in early trading.

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