Perth based ASX listed Stargroup look set to make that elusive transition from money gobbling, fast growing start-up, to a fully franked dividend paying stock that will at least cover an investor’s interest bill at current prices.
The ATM machine and financial payments company recently announced to the market they were on track to pay a maiden dividend this financial year that will represent a 6.67% return to an investor at the current share price.
The news comes after an amazing growth spurt that has spawned 11 consecutive record quarters in a row with yet another record predicted to be smashed next quarter.
Stargroup finished the December quarter with its highest quarterly sales figure yet of $2.4m representing a whopping 206% jump on the same period last year.
The company is predicting that figure to soar again next quarter with expectations that sales will touch around $3.1m for that quarter, the 12th record quarter in a row.
Stargroup CEO and Executive Chairman Todd Zani says the growth in sales is coming from both organic growth in the number of ATM machines on the street around the country and a super aggressive M&A program that has seen the company snap up a swag of related businesses in the ATM industry over the last couple of years.
Having achieved significant scale in terms of the number of ATM machines deployed in the market, Zani recently turned his attention to vertical integration which resulted in the take out of 40 year old Indue Limited’s ATM assets.
These included Indue’s ATM switching, settlement, processing, telecommunications and ATM reseller business.
The $6.5m sale, which was funded by debt, not equity, added around $1.7m to Stargroup’s annual EBITDA and $4.1m to the top line.
Mr Zani said “Our half year ATM revenues were a 218% improvement when compared with the prior half year result and our total group revenues have also improved 206% when compared over the same period, which is an excellent result for the first half of this fiscal year.”
“We have seen excellent organic growth in the last quarter with our revenues up 36% on the prior quarterly result. I am excited that we are also anticipating that our future revenues in the next quarter will be up a further 31% on the current quarter, which is based on further organic growth and the revenues anticipated from the integration of the Indue businesses into our group of companies, as highlighted below.”