Gulf starts at Sheikh Adi-2 25/05/2012
Iraq-focused oil explorer Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) has begun drilling at the Sheikh Adi-2 well in the Sheikh Adi block.
Fairpoint plans lending move
Debt advice and management specialist Fairpoint Group (FRP) is moving into short-term lending after flat annual profits of £5.8 million pre-tax. The Lancashire-based company upped adjusted pre-tax profits13 per cent to £6.9 million before amortisation and exceptional restructuring costs in 2010 on turnover 2 per cent ahead to £29.4 million.
Chief executive officer Chris Moat says AIM-quoted Fairpoint has been diversifying from its core, market leading Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) business, whose average value has been falling, into debt management and financial services, such as switching clients between insurance providers, utilities and other services. Non-IVA work now provides 20 per cent of turnover, with debt management revenues up 32 per cent, and Moat suggests tighter regulation will push more of the smaller fry out of the market, creating opportunities for Fairpoint.
He says Fairpoint, which ended 2010 with £978,000 cash, aims to grow debt management organically and by acquisition. In financial services, the company's takeover of Money Extra in the second half of the year, for £1 plus a commitment to provide up to £1 million working capital, has enabled it to perform multiple switches for clients.
Arguing Fairpoint is gradually switching its focus from the financially desperate to the financially stretched, Moat argues the IVA business should accelerate as Government spending cuts show through into higher unemployment and also when interest rates turn up. He says the banks' withdrawal from low-level lending is giving Fairpoint the opportrunity to move into direct lending of sums between £200 and £700, with full product launch in January.
Fairpoint has doubled its full-year pay out to 4p a share. At 79.5p, between a year's high of 86.5p and a low of 61.5p, the shares yield 5.6 per cent and should prove resiient.
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