LONDON (dpa-AFX) - FirstGroup Plc (FGROY.PK), a provider of public transport services in the UK, said Thursday that it now expects current trading and the outlook for the fiscal year 2025 to be slightly ahead of its expectations, after the Group turned to profit in the first half.
The Group reported pre-tax profit of 70.3 million pounds, compared to a pre-tax loss of 68.5 million pounds same period last year. Attributable profit was 55.8 million pounds or 8.8 pence per share, as against a loss of 55.1 million pounds or 7.9 pence per share last year.
On an adjusted basis, pre-tax profit slid to 70.7 million pounds from 71.3 million pounds, but earnings per share rose to 8.5 pence from 7.8 pence last year.
FirstGroup's revenue for the half year grew to 2.344 billion pounds from last year's 2.207 billion pounds, on a statutory basis. On an adjusted basis, revenue grew to 649.6 million pounds from 634.8 million pounds, reflecting strong underlying performance in First Bus and good demand in First Rail open access.
In addition, the Group announced an additional 50 million pounds share buyback programme. It also declared an interim dividend of 1.7 pence per share, to be paid on 31 December 2024 to shareholders on the register at 29 November 2024.
Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2024 AFX News
