Perth-based education provider Navitas has announced a 39 per cent profit increase and unchanged dividend for the 2015 financial year.
Perth-based education provider Navitas has announced a 39 per cent profit increase and unchanged dividend for the 2015 financial year.
Reported net profit after tax was $71.8 million, with underlying EBITDA for the company up 13 per cent to $163.1 million for the year ending June 30 2015.
The company’s annual revenue was up 12 per cent to $980.3 million.
A final fully franked dividend of 10.1 cents a share will be paid in September, bringing the year’s total dividend to the same 19.5 cents a share as was awarded to shareholders for the 2014 financial year.
Navitas expects earnings for 2016 will remain in line with that of the 2015 financial year, and said that it believes the loss of the Sydney Institute of Business and Technology program with Macquarie University will be mitigated by growth in programs at other universities and in other divisions.
While Navitas was positive about the future, the company's shares were down 5.9 per cent to $4.29 at 1030 AWST.
Romano Sala Tenna from Katana Asset Management said that 2016 was looking like “a tale of two halves” for Navitas, with a solid first half and a falloff in profits for the second half of the financial year.
Mr Sala Tenna indicated that the market believes the flat profit guidance for the coming year may be a best case scenario, and that there have been questions raised regarding Navitas’s potential results for 2017.
In July 2014 the company announced that Macquarie had decided to cease the SIBT after February 2016.
The university division of the company experienced a 15 per cent growth in underlying EBITDA and a 13 per cent increase in revenue, to $140.4 million and $566.3 million respectively.
The professional and English programs division grew underlying EBITDA by 17 per cent to $29.5 million, despite slightly lower revenue of $224 million for the 2015 financial year compared with the previous year’s $244.2 million revenue.
SAE, the company’s creative media education division, brought in $185.5 million in revenue, a 23 per cent increase over 2014’s result.
EBITDA growth for the SAE division was 7 per cent to $26.1 million.
Chief executive Rod Jones highlighted the achievements of the business in its 20th anniversary year.
“A number of key achievements were; continued high progression rates in the University Programs Division, improved netpromoter scores in the professional and english programs and SAE divisions, an expansion of our global agent network and an increase of 15 per cent in the royalties paid to our university partners,” Mr Jones said.
