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Ultimate Finance Group

  • BY: Andrew Hore |
  • POSTED: 29/03/2011 |

Ultimate Finance Group is already seeing the benefits of its acquisition of Ashley Commercial Finance last October.

The trade finance provider reported an underlying increase in profit of 163% in the six months to December 2010. Revenues grew from £2.85m to £4.32m, while the profit jumped from £191,000 to £502,000. Ashley’s profit contribution was £228,000.

Ultimate hopes to make annualised cost savings of more than £400,000 from integrating the businesses – they already share offices in Manchester. Around £100,000 should show through in this financial year.

Ashley fits well with Ultimate because it deals with smaller clients that Ultimate would have passed on. The group has a £34m bank facility and there was still £6.2m to spare at the end of 2010.

The interim dividend has been raised from 0.3p a share to 0.35p a share. Ultimate had a policy of paying 50% of its earnings in dividends but it adapted this when it was about to buy Ashley. Even so, this year’s dividend could still be around 40% of earnings.

At 15.25p a share, Ultimate is valued at £7.59m.

Joint broker WH Ireland has sold all or most of its stake in Ultimate. The broker was one of the original backers of the business when it floated in 2002 and it owned 5.18m shares. The stake has gone below 3%.

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