Final Results

London Finance & Investment Grp.PLC 17 August 2001 London Finance & Investment Group P.L.C. Preliminary announcement of unaudited results for the year ended 30th June 2001 This year was definitely one of two halves. In the first half growth in net asset value per share, taking listed investments at market value, was very strong. Net assets rose from 50.0p per share at 30th June 2000 to 61.1p at 31st December, an increase of 22% in a period in which the FTSE 100 index fell by 1%. However we were not able to avoid the turbulence in the markets in the second half of the year and net assets declined to 54.3p per share at 30th June 2001. This increase in net assets of 9% over the year to £13.9 million compares to falls in the FTSE 100 and FTSE All Share indices of 11% and 10% respectively over the same period. The profit before tax for the year ended 30th June 2001 was £1,060,000 an increase of 66% from £638,000 reported last year. Earnings per share increased by 68% from 2.4p last year to 4.1p in the year to 30th June 2001. These results have been significantly influenced by exceptional profits recorded by our associated company, Western Selection P.L.C., which are explained below. Excluding exceptional items, our profit before tax has fallen from £444,000 last year to £255,000 and earnings per share have fallen from 1.67p to 0.94p. This decrease is mainly due to a reduction in the sale of General Portfolio investments with correspondingly lower profits. Your directors propose to raise the dividend this year to 1.2p per share, an increase of 9% (2000 - 1.1p) Strategic Investments Western Selection P.L.C. ('Western') The Company owns 17,611,745 shares, being 40.48% of the issued share capital, and 3,238,255 warrants, of Western. On 2nd August 2001 Western announced a profit after tax and exceptional items of £2 million for its year to 30th June 2001, an increase in earnings to 4.56p from 1.96p, and a 15% increase in dividend to 0.46p (2000 - 0.40p). Western's net assets at market value were £ 13.1 million, equivalent to 30.2p per share, an increase of 2% over the 29.6p recorded at 30th June 2000. The market value of the Company's investment in Western at 30th June 2000 was £3.4 million and the book value was £4.0 million. At market value this represents 25% of the net assets of the Company. The underlying value of the Company's investment in Western, valuing Western's own investments at market value, was £5.3 million (2000- £5.2 million). I am the Chairman of Western and Mr. Robotham is a non-executive director. Western has strategic investments in The Sanctuary Group PLC and Creston plc and has recently committed to make a Strategic Investment in Doctors Direct plc prior to its introduction to Ofex and has reported on them as follows: The Sanctuary Group PLC At 30th June 2001, Western owned 4,000,000 shares (1.46% of the issued share capital) and 3,131,801 warrants in Sanctuary. The market value of Western's holding in shares and warrants on 30th June 2001 was £4.5 million, being 34% of Western's net assets, and the cost was £593,100. On 24th August 2000, Western sold 2,725,000 shares in Sanctuary at a price of 73p each realising a profit of £1,575,300. This was Western's first sale of Sanctuary shares since its transformation from Burlington Group plc in 1998. The cash received of almost £2 million has more than recouped the total investment in the company of £1 million. Since the year end, Western has sold a further 1,131,801 shares and exercised the holding of 3,131,801 warrants at 25p each and now holds 6,000,000 shares representing 2.0% of the issued share capital. On 5th June 2001 Sanctuary announced its results for the half-year to 31st March 2001. Turnover increased by 174% over the equivalent period in 2000; operating profits before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation increased by 140%. Profit before tax, after amortisation of the catalogues rose 76%. Basic earnings per share were 0.88p for the half-year compared with 0.81p for the same period a year earlier, an increase of 8%. On 19th June 2001 Sanctuary announced agreement in principle to acquire the Trojan catalogue of over 10,000 tracks for £10.3 million, which will extend its presence in the Reggae segment of the market. In addition, Sanctuary announced that it had raised £20.5 million, by a placing of 27.35 million shares at 75p each, which will be used to finance the acquisition of Trojan, repay some existing debt and provide additional working capital. Creston plc Western owns 1,600,000 shares and 308,264 warrants, being 14% of the issued share capital and 16% of the warrants of Creston. The market value of Western's holding in Creston on 30th June 2001 was £1.3 million, being 10% of the Company's net assets, and the book value was £1.6 million. On 20th December 2000, Creston disposed of its remaining property interests and on 29th January 2001 it completed its transformation from a UK property company, to a marketing services company by acquiring Synergie Consulting Limited and a well established quantitative research company with a blue chip client list, Marketing Sciences Limited. Synergie Consulting was established by Don Elgie, Creston's new Chief Executive, for the purpose of developing a 'buy and build' concept within the marketing services sector. Doctors Direct plc On 31st July 2001, Western entered into an agreement providing for the investment of a sum totalling £500,000 in Doctors Direct. Ten per cent. of this total will be allocated at cost to a co-investor. Western will therefore hold 4.5 million shares and 4.5 million warrants (which will be 15% of their issued share capital and 41.7% of their issued warrants). These shares will be part of an offer for subscription of 10 million new shares being conducted by way of a prospectus and admission to trading on Ofex. On completion of the offer, assuming maximum subscription, Doctors Direct will have 30 million shares in issue and be capitalised at £3 million at the offer price of 10p. In recognition of Western's significant investment, Mr. D.C. Marshall (Chairman of both Western and London Finance) has agreed to act as non-executive chairman of Doctors Direct upon completion of this fund raising. Doctors Direct provides a visiting GP service direct to individuals and organisations at their home, hotel or workplace 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Visits are made at the patient's request and convenience. Doctors can attend patients throughout the central London area. The new shares are being issued to raise working capital to expand the business both within London and in other areas with suitable population densities and profiles. Unlike many Ofex stocks, Doctors Direct is an established company that is trading profitably and made profits before tax of £126,000 on turnover of £683,600 in the nine month period ended 31st March 2001. It had annualised earnings per share of 0.8p on a pre-funding basis. The company believes it will be able to substantially boost turnover over the next few years, as it plans to emulate the success of SOS Medecins, which provides a similar service in Paris and has proved extremely successful. Marylebone Warwick Balfour Group Plc ('MWB') The Company owns 3,000,000 shares in MWB, being 2.59% of the issued share capital of MWB. The market value of the Company's holding in shares of MWB on 30th June 2001 was £5.2 million and the book value was £2.5 million. At market value this represents 37% of the net assets of the Company. MWB has six main operating divisions: serviced business space, hotels, fund management, asset management, project management and retail operations. The first four of these are structured as long term businesses producing recurring income and cash flow, the project management division produces profits and fees over fixed timetables and the retail operations encompass the Liberty retail store operations in London. I am the Chairman of MWB and Mr. Robotham is a non-executive director. MWB's European serviced business space operations have nearly doubled in capacity over the last year. The focus is on Europe's major business cities with London and Paris representing 50% of workstations and operating at 80% capacity. 75% of the London centres have a relatively low cost base as they are either owned or have been refurbished by MWB. The hotels business is underpinned by long term operating and management agreements with internationally renowned hotel groups. These agreements are signed before commencing any new development, usually for 20 years and including a minimum annual income guarantee. Planning consent has recently been granted to add another two floors to The Howard, a five-star hotel on London's Victoria Embankment, which will increase the number of rooms by almost a third. The Malmaison chain was acquired last November and is operated in conjunction with Scandanavian Airlines System. Construction work continues on a 157 room luxury hotel on Park Lane, London to be operated by Marriott International and at Argyll Street, Glasgow which will be operated by Radisson SAS Hotels. The first two leisure funds operated by MWB's fund management division are fully invested and the third fund has invested £110 million of the total capability of £250 million. The life of the MWB Leisure Fund 1 has been increased by a further two years until December 2003, providing MWB with continuing management fees. On 6th July 2001, MWB announced that approval had been received for its 70% owned development at the Royal Victoria Docks. This development valued at approaching £300m will include 750 hotel rooms and detailed planning consent has been received for two hotels with a total of 413 rooms which are being constructed on behalf of Accor. Retail Stores, which owns Liberty, has disposed of surplus property, is refurbishing the store and has converted part of the space into serviced offices. It has a new management team to revitalise the Liberty brand and return the retail operations to profitability. MWB announced earnings of 5.3p per share for its half-year ended 31st December 2000, up from 4.8p for the half-year ended 31st December 1999, and an interim dividend of 1.4p per share (1.4p last year). At 31st December 2000 MWB had net assets £303 million which represent net assets per share of 204p (up from 202p at 30th June 2000). Megalomedia plc ('Megalomedia') At 30th June 2001 the Company owned 4,300,000 shares in Megalomedia, representing 5.74% of Megalomedia's issued share capital. The market value of our holding was £1.2 million on 30th June 2001 compared to a cost of £0.6 million. Megalomedia sold its post production film services business to management in the year for £12 million and has agreed in principle to sell its recruitment business to management for £0.4 million. Shareholder and court approval has been granted for a tender scheme under which Megalomedia has repurchased 77% of its shares at a price of 29p each on 7 August. We have not tendered any of our shares and as a result now own 25% of Megalomedia following the share repurchase. Megalomedia has net assets of £5 million and two other major shareholders: Landau Enterprises Inc. and Robert Fleming & Co Ltd who own 28% and 26% of the company respectively. Mr. Barclay is a director of our associated company Western, and he and I are both non-executive directors of Megalomedia. Megalomedia has outsourced all of its day-to-day activities to our management services subsidiary City Group Ltd who will be working with the board of Megalomedia to identify suitable businesses for acquisition. Merrydown plc ('Merrydown') In June, we acquired 1,100,000 shares in Merrydown plc at a cost of £432,000. This represents 4.15% of Merrydown's issued share capital. Merrydown is a leading cider producer and also manufactures the Schloer range of soft drinks, which is widely distributed through supermarkets. Sales of Schloer increased by 47% to £8.5 million in the year ended 31st March 2001. This is almost 50% of the total sales for the year of £17.6 million and reflects the continuing shift in emphasis of the company from cider to soft drinks. The Merrydown cider brand maintained its market share in a difficult year. Merrydown's profit before tax for the year ended 31st March 2001 was £1.0 million compared to £742,000 for the previous year and earnings per share were 2.9p, up from 1.6p in the previous year. At 31 March 2001, Merrydown had no borrowings and £2.8 million in cash. It also had £865,000 of property held for resale. Shareholders funds were 50p per share at 31st March 2001, which compares favourably with our average purchase price of 39.3p General Portfolio The General Portfolio is dominated by three sectors: banking and insurance; food, beverages and consumer goods; support services, transport and logistics. These three sectors accounted for 64% of the portfolio by value at 30th June 2001. We believe that the companies in these sectors in which we have invested have the potential to outperform the market in the medium to long term. We are taking a cautious view of the stock markets in the short term and the General Portfolio has therefore been reduced in size over the year from a cost of £3.7 million to £3.4 million. This has allowed a reduction in bank borrowings from £1.5 million to £0.9 million and with the bank facility of £2 million gives us flexibility to take advantage of any bargains arising from the current volatility in world stock markets. The year ahead Our long standing strategy is to achieve increasing value for shareholders from a number of Strategic Investments, which may well be volatile, and a General Portfolio of leading shares in companies which operate on a global basis. Every day the newspapers seem to provide more bad news about the performance or the outlook for world economies, in view of which we maintain a cautious view for the shorter term. Our strategy has been successful in recent years and will enable us to take advantage, where appropriate, of new opportunities. D.C. MARSHALL Chairman ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unaudited Consolidated Profit and Loss Account For the year ended 30th June 2001 2000 £000 £000 Operating Income Investment operations 620 660 Management services 425 433 Administrative expenses Investment operations (273) (271) Management services (416) (430) Operating profit 356 392 Share of result of associated undertaking- normal 16 175 - exceptional 805 194 Interest payable (117) (123) Profit on ordinary activities before taxation 1,060 638 Tax on result of ordinary activities (12) (16) Profit on ordinary activities after taxation 1,048 622 Minority interest (3) (1) Profit attributable to members of the holding company 1,045 621 Proposed dividend 1 (307) (281) Retained profit for the period 738 340 Earnings per share 2 4.09 p 2.43 p Earnings per share excluding exceptionals 2 0.94 p 1.67 p Fully diluted earnings per share 2 3.93 p 2.35 p There are no recognised gains or losses other than the above profits and accordingly no separate statement of recognised gains and losses is shown. All profits and losses are on continuing activities. There is no difference in either year between the above profit and the profit on an historical cost basis. Unaudited Balance Sheets at 30th June Group Company 2001 2000 2001 2000 £000 £000 £000 £000 Fixed Assets Tangible assets 493 517 467 477 Investments in Group companies - - 6,154 6,087 Investments 7,607 6,499 - - 8,100 7,016 6,621 6,564 Current Assets Listed investments 3,443 3,710 3,443 3,710 Unlisted investments 43 55 43 55 Debtors 157 146 44 41 Bank balance and deposits 32 53 17 35 3,675 3,964 3,547 3,841 Current Liabilities Creditors: falling due within one year (2,010) (1,962) (1,972) (1,906) Net Current Assets 1,665 2,002 1,575 1,935 Total Assets less Current Liabilities 9,765 9,018 8,196 8,499 Capital and Reserves Called up share capital 1,277 1,276 1,277 1,276 Share premium account 962 957 962 957 Reserves 361 361 480 480 Profit and loss account 7,109 6,371 5,477 5,786 Equity shareholders' funds 9,709 8,965 8,196 8,499 Minority equity interests 56 53 - - 9,765 9,018 8,196 8,499 Analysis of Net Assets at 30th June 2001 2000 £000 £000 Principal investments at market value: Western Selection P.L.C. 3,418 2,604 Megalomedia plc 1,161 867 Marylebone Warwick Balfour Group Plc 5,160 4,830 Creston plc - sold 30 January 2001 - 238 Merrydown PLC - acquired 27 June 2001 429 - 10,168 8,539 General equity portfolio at market value 5,040 5,479 Tangible fixed assets 493 517 Cash, bank balances and deposits 32 53 Bank Loan (900) (1,500) Other net liabilities (910) (261) Minority interests (55) (53) Net assets, including investments at market value 13,868 12,774 Net assets per share, including investments at market 54.28 p 50.05p values The market value of net assets is stated before any taxation which may arise on disposal. Consolidated Cash Flow Statement For the year ended 30th June 2001 2000 £000 £000 Cash outflow on operating activities 888 (18) Returns on investments and servicing of finance Dividends received 374 369 Interest paid (105) (104) Net cash inflow from returns on investments and servicing of 269 265 finance Taxation (6) (10) Investing activities Tangible fixed assets - purchased (3) (31) Fixed asset investments - purchased (532) (511) - proceeds on disposal 238 167 Net cash outflow from investment activities (297) (375) Equity dividend paid - Company (281) (255) Financing Share capital issued 6 1 Net (repayment)/drawdown of loan facility (600) 350 Net cash (outflow)/inflow from financing (594) 351 Decrease in cash (21) (42) Notes 1 The dividend for the year of 1.20p per share (2000 - 1.10p) will be paid on 12th October 2001 to shareholders on the register on 21st September 2001. 2 Earnings per share are based on the result of ordinary activities after taxation and minority interests and on 25,540,767 (2000 - 25,523,710) being the weighted average of the number of shares in issue during the year. 3 The net assets attributable to shareholders, taking investments at market value, are before providing for any tax that may arise on realisation 4. The financial information in this preliminary announcement of unaudited group results, which has been reviewed and agreed by the auditors, does not constitute statutory accounts within the meaning of section 240(5) of the Companies Act 1985. The audited accounts of the group for the year ended 30th June 2000 have been reported on with an unqualified audit report in accordance with section 235 of the Companies Act 1985 and have been delivered to the Registrar of Companies. General Equity Portfolio Anglo American PLC AstraZeneca PLC Avocet Mining PLC BAA PLC BOC Group PLC Cable & Wireless PLC CGNU PLC Credit Suisse Group AG Diageo PLC Fortis (NL) NV Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC GlaxoSmithKline PLC HSBC Holdings plc ING Groep NV J. Sainsbury plc Johnson Matthey PLC Lavendon Group PLC Lloyds TSB Group PLC Marconi PLC Nestle SA Novartis AG Pearson PLC Prudential PLC Reuters Group PLC Roche Holdings AG Rolls-Royce PLC Schweiz-Ruckversicherungs-G The Shell Transport & Trading Company PLC Somerfield PLC Tibbett & Britten Group PLC UBS AG Unilever PLC UTi Worldwide Inc. Vodafone Group PLC Wyndeham Press Group PLC Zurich Financial Services AG
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