(Adds chairman's quotes, further detail on finance director)
LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Debt Free Direct Group PLC, the debt adviser,
said first half pretax profit fell to 5.16 mln stg from 5.4 mln stg this time a
year ago, although adjusted pretax profit remained unchanged at 5.4 mln stg.
The group also said that it will be renamed Fairpoint to reflect a new
strategic direction.
Revenues for the first half of the year to end-October rose to 20.1 mln stg
from 12.9 mln stg this time last year.
The group, which also suspended its share buyback program, added that Paul
Latham, the group's finance director, is also to step down. Andrew Heath will
take the role as finance director designate.
Debt Free Direct, the UK's leading arranger of Individual Voluntary
Agreements (IVAs), said that the macro-economic outlook is "favourable", because
of the growing consumer debt problems and the credit-crunch.
It added that the business prospects for the group are "positive," and said
that it expects to reduce central overheads to 6 mln stg in the full year of
2008. "The business is poised for further volume and profitability growth,".
"It has been a challenging first half where the well-documented issues
affecting the IVA industry impacted on the group's profitability, particularly
as we continued to invest heavily in marketing in order to grow our market share
and build up our back book," said chairman Mike Blackburn. "We have seen a
material improvement in the key factors influencing trading in the last two
months."
alexander.ferguson@thomson.com
af/vlb/af/vlb
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