Computershare revenues in Australia and New Zealand increased by 9.1 per cent to $228.1m in the first half of the 2012 financial year, whilst EBITDA increased by 3.9 per cent to $47.9m.
The company revealed the value of its investment Digital Post Australia had increased by 500 per cent in just six months.
Digital Post Australia was valued at US$695,000 in June 2012 and according to Computershare it is valued at US$4m as of December 2012.
Follwing its purchas eof the 40 per cent of Digital Post Austrlia that was formerly owned by Salmat and then passed to Fuji Xerox when the latter acquired the print business of the former Computershare now has an 80 per cent share in Digital Post Australia.
Stuart Crosby, CEO, Computershare says the company is pleased to be building on its investment, he says, “We’ve said all along that we’re totally committed to the concept of online mailboxes for Australian businesses and consumers, and this shows we’re confident in the success of Digital Post Australia.”
Crosby says, “We conducted a successful private launch and look forward to the public launch in the coming months.”
Overall Computershare posted a net profit of US$94.6m for the six months ending December 31, 2012, a 15.2 per cent decline year on year however revenue rose by 26.1 per cent to US$977m on the back of the company’s acquisitions, but profit margins fell from 14.4 per cent to 9.7 per cent as net debt fell 0.9 per cent to US$1.3bn.
Crosby says, “We have witnessed a recent up-tick in equity markets as reflected in the higher index levels across the globe, however we are yet to see a demonstrable improvement in corporate actions globally. Global uncertainty and soft corporate confidence remain the impediment, but we are positioned to take advantage of any shift in attitude that results in more issuer activity. Interest rates remain at their recent lows, and the high levels of liquidity within financial institutions globally mean that we are starting to find it harder to achieve the premiums over reference rates that we have been able to achieve in the past.”
Crosby says, “Fortunately client balances have continued to grow and support our margin income, but it is not possible to predict whether these balances can be sustained at these levels.”
“The Shareowner Services integration and forecast synergies remain on track. The contributions from SLS and Serviceworks continue to meet expectations. But transaction based revenues remain challenged and we continue to rely heavily on our annuity revenue streams.”
“In November we said that we expect management EPS to be between 10 per cent and 15 per cent higher than in FY12. Since November, there has been an increase in optimism about a range of the economies in which we operate and equity market price levels have risen. To date, we have seen no material flow through of these factors to our businesses. We continue to expect management EPS for FY13 to be between 10 per cent and 15 per cent higher than in FY12. As usual, our assessment of the outlook assumes that equity, foreign exchange and interest rate markets remain at current levels,” concludes Crosby.
Management adjusted earnings per share jumped 16.4 per cent to 26.87 cents as Computershare declared a 20 per cent franked interim dividend of 14 cents per share.
