Highlights
Profit before tax up 24.7% to £20.5 million (H1 2015: £16.4 million) leading to a profit attributable to shareholders up 27.5% to £16.5 million (H1 2015: £12.9 million).
Basic and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of £0.09 (H1 2015: £0.07). Underlying basic and diluted earnings per share (EPS) 1 of £0.11 (H1 2015: £0.09) delivering an LTM underlying return on equity (ROE)1 of 27.4% (31 December 2015: 26.5%)
Interim dividend of 2.7p per share (H1 2015: 1.7p)
Total revenue up 32.4% to £101.5 million (H1 2015: £76.7 million), driven by core collections up 38.0% to £138.8 million (H1 2015: £100.6 million) and income from asset management up 292.7% to £17.2 million, leading to an increase in Adjusted EBITDA up 60.3% to £105.3 million (H1 2015: £65.7 million)
Increased total purchased loan portfolios to £692.0 million (31 December 2015: £609.8 million) with 120-month ERC up 15.7% to £1,417.2 million (31 December 2015: £1,224.5 million) and 84-month ERC up 16.7% to £1,200.0 million (31 December 2015: £1,028.6 million).
£131.4 million invested during the period, including organic portfolio purchases of £96.0 million
Acquisition of InVesting B.V. ("InVesting"), a leading consumer debt purchaser and collections provider with operations in the Netherlands and Belgium for an enterprise value of circa €100 million
Successfully issued €230 million seven-year Floating Rate Notes to finance the InVesting acquisition, repay outstanding amounts under our RCF and provide funds for future investments
Successfully refinanced £180 million multi-currency RCF with a reduced margin of 2.75%, a reduction of 100bps
S&P upgrade of the Group's credit rating to BB- from B+ and the Group's Notes credit rating from BB- to BB
Net debt £739.1 million and Net Debt to LTM Adjusted EBITDA ratio of 3.8x (31 December 2015: 3.8x)
Full Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorisation received in August
