Australian job classifieds website business Seek has lifted dividend one cent a share to 24 cents a share after reporting perkier interim results yesterday for the first half of 2017-18.
That saw the shares rise 1.0% to $20.50 – a modest rise, but one that easily beat the market up around 0.6%.
The company reported a 21% rise in profit to $102 million for the six months to December 31, thanks to a sharp jump in revenue.
Sales revenue rose 27% to $620.3 million, from $487.9 million a year ago when weak economic conditions in Brazil and South-East Asia hit the company’s international business.
Seek’s Australian and New Zealand employment division delivered $196.7 million in revenue, up 15% from a year ago thanks to growth in advertising volumes as we are seeing with the ANZ jobs ads index which rose 11.4% in 2017, price increases and premium products.
SEEK also upgraded its earnings growth guidance to between 14% and 15%, from 13%, and said it expects full-year net profit to come in toward the upper end of its $225 million to $230 million guidance.
