LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - AIM-quoted media firm SpaceandPeople saw profits surge in its most recent trading year, despite reporting a slight dip in gross revenue, thanks to a "continued focus" on its core UK and German markets.
While the group sought to insulate itself from overexposure to any one large market or client with a more diverse set of revenue streams, gross revenue for the year ended 31 December slipped 2.18% to £22.4m, however, SpaceandPeople also finally saw the fruits of its labours in 2017 as it returned an impressive 1,900% increase in pre-tax profits to £1.2m despite "many challenges in the retail sector".

Earnings per share soared from 0.3p to 4.8p.

SpaceandPeople was successful in retaining and winning new contracts with large-scale venue and retail owners, such as Landsec, at the same time as an "improved effectiveness and performance in sales and venue optimisation" allowed the group to create more revenue opportunities with long-term clients, such as Network Rail.

After repaying all of its bank debt on the back of the strong cashflow and increased profits, SpaceandPeople also decided to make the move of reinstating its dividend with a payment of 1.5p per ordinary share to its shareholders.

SpaceandPeople's chief executive, Matthew Bending, said "The key aims for the year were to ensure that growth in revenue and profit were sustainable and that more diverse revenue streams would help insulate us from overexposure to any one large market or client. To achieve this, we restructured the UK management team bringing in additional management resource during the year. We also developed and implemented a new CRM system which has recently gone live and will improve productivity."

As of 0930 GMT, shares had dropped 1.49% to 33.00p.

Email this article to a friend

or share it with one of these popular networks:

• DIGG
• FACEBOOK
• STUMBLEUPON
• MIXX
• YAHOO BUZZ
• DELICIOUS
• REDDIT
• NEWSVINE