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Legal business DWF lifted its dividend pay-out ratio and said that it had seen a 'strong' recovery in the fiscal first-quarter following an annual plunge in profit owing to the pandemic impact.
The company reported that revenue grew 20.3% in the first three months of FY21, driven by mid-single digit organic growth and contribution from acquisitions of RCD and Mindcrest.
Given the stronger-than-expected recovery in Q1 of FY21, the company pledged to increase the pay-out ratio to 90% for FY20, to allow a final dividend of 0.75p per share.
The update came as annual profit slumped on lower margins.
For the year ended 30 April 2020, pre-tax profit fell 39.6% to £18.2m on-year, while revenue rose 10.9% to £297.2m.
Gross margin fell 5.6% to 47.9%, as the 'COVID-19 revenue impact came too late in the year to be able to mitigate with cost savings,' the company said.
At 9:38am: (LON:DWF) share price was +2.9p at 62.4p