LONDON (ShareCast) - London-listed water company Severn Trent posted a 53.5% drop in full-year pre-tax profit, pointing to a fair value loss on financial instruments, largely due to lower expectations for future interest rates, and an exceptional tax credit in the previous year.
Pre-tax profit fell 53.5% to £148.2m from £318.9m last year, with the company noting an exceptional tax credit in 2014 arising from an agreement with HMRC on a long-standing discussion regarding overpayments of tax in prior periods.

Excluding exceptional items and losses on financial instruments, profit rose to £300.4m from £276.1m, on revenue of £1.8bn, up from £1.75bn.

Basic earnings per share fell to 49.9p from 182.1p, but adjusted earnings per share rose 15.9% to 107.2p from 92.5p.

The company lifted its dividend by 5.6% to 84.90p per share from 80.40p.

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