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Equipment rental company Ashtead lifted its dividend after reporting a 1% fall in annual profit as a return to revenue growth in the final quarter of the fiscal year, helped soften the pandemic impact.
For the year ended 30 April, pre-tax profit fell 1% to £936 million year-on-year, while revenue was up 3% to £5.0 billion.
'Our performance in these challenging conditions has been impressive with rental only revenue in the US only 2% lower than last year, as we returned to growth in the fourth quarter,' the company said.
In the fourth quarter, rental revenue was up 15% over last year and up 14% when compared with the fourth quarter of 2018/19, both at constant exchange rates.
The company increased its final dividend to 35.0p per share from 33.5p, taking the total for the year to 42.15p, up from 40.65p. I
Looking ahead, the company guided rental revenue in the range of 6% to 9%, with US revenue in a range of 6 to 9%, Canada revenue of 20% to 25%, and UK revenue of 5% to 8%.