Non-life insurance services company Randall & Quilter (LON:RQIH) has set out plans to return £1.6m to shareholders following strong first-half results. The company said it would return the equivalent of 2.9p per share through the issue of B shares and a 91:94 share capital consolidation. The news came as Randall reported a pre-tax profit of £5.8m, up from £1.2m, for the six months to end-June but warned that it did not expected the strong performance to be repeated in the second half.
Group income was up 52% at £16.1m from the previous £10.6m. Net investment income rose to £4.6m from £3.6m. Basic earnings per share increased to 6.9p from a loss of 1.7p. Chairman and chief executive Ken Randall said the strong profit was partly attributable to a particularly good result from the Insurance Services division, which delivered a pre-tax profit of £3.6m, up from £1.9m.
He said: "As anticipated, the division benefited during the period from significant profit commission earned in respect of the management of syndicate 3330. All operating divisions however performed better or in line with expectations. Beyond the current year, weak investment markets look set to continue to impact on the overall group result but the service businesses are in good shape and these reliable profit streams (unaffected by investment returns) will enable the group to maintain its stated distribution policy. We remain optimistic that the development of our new underwriting management and 'live' servicing operations and our ability to find and execute value enhancing acquisitions will also provide further opportunities for growth in profitability."
The company said it was confident for the full year but did not expect the strong H1 performance to be repeated in the second half, given that interest rates and corporate bond spreads had moved to unexpectedly low levels. Any further profit commission on syndicate 3330 was likely to be significantly lower.
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