– By Caroline Falls –
Eclipx, one of four fleet management organisations listed on the Australian stock exchange, forecast net profit after tax will accelerate in the year ending September 30, thanks to new fleet customer wins and strong growth in its consumer business units CarLoans.com.au and Right2Drive.
The company announced its forecast for 18-21 percent growth for its current fiscal year in its latest earnings report to the stock exchange. The financial results showed the group’s profit grew 14 percent to $55.3 million, compared with the year earlier. Eclipx said it expects net profit to rise to between $65.5 million and $67 million in the current year.
Eclipx, which operates three business divisions across Australia and New Zealand, listed its shares for trading in April 2015 with a market capitalisation of about $680 million, based on its first day of trading that ended with shares priced at $2.82. That’s blown out to about $1 billion, with shares last trading at about $3.88.
Commenting on Eclipx Group’s 2016 results, CEO Doc Klotz said: “We have delivered another year of strong growth in both new business volumes and earnings with a robust performance across our fleet and consumer businesses”.
“This has come as a result of our continued success in our fleet businesses, particularly in the large corporate and government segments, increasing profit on sale of used vehicles and the continued diversification into the consumer market through the acquisition of Right2Drive”.
The company said its key competitive differentiators in telematics and the medium/heavy commercial vehicle segments helped it to achieve above market growth.
Highlights of the group’s 2016 financial performance included new business writings of $913 million, or 15 percent more than the previous year. This fills the group’s pipeline for future revenue through realising income over the life of leases under management, as well as conversion to other products in the group. The growth was evenly spread across each of its divisions: Australia commercial (15 percent); NZ commercial (15 percent) and Australia consumer (16 percent).
Eclipx products include operating leases, financing leases, fleet management, telematics, FBT management, novated leasing, used vehicle sales and car rentals. Along with consumer brands Right2Drive and CarLoans.com.au already mentioned are Fleet Choice and commercial brands Fleet Partners, fleetplus, eclipx, and AutoSelect.
Eclipx reported it grew its vehicles under management or finance 24 percent to 99,254 in the year ended Sept. 30. The value of its assets under management or finance grew 15 percent to $2.04 billion.
Eclipx said it will pay a 7 cent per share fully franked final dividend, taking the full-year payout to shareholders to 13.75 cents, more than double the previous year’s total dividends of 6.5 cents.
