25 Feb 2014

Freightways expects continued growth

8:00 am on 25 February 2014

Express package and information management company Freightways expects the growth in its business to continue, after reporting a record half year profit.

The courier and data management firm posted a net profit of $21.7 million for the six months to December, 3 percent more than the $21 million for the same time the previous year. Operating revenue rose 6 percent to $218 million.

Chief executive Dean Bracewell said all the businesses had improved, except the small DX mail division.

"Overall, the widespread strength of the result indicates to us that we should be pretty optimistic about the near term and (there's) no reason why this shouldn't continue, from what we see," Mr Bracewell said.

The rise of the New Zealand dollar against its Australian counterpart had wiped $500,000 off its operating earnings, he said.

"The information management businesses in Australia, their performance is translated at a lot higher kiwi dollar than it was at the same time last year.

"But if we look at the performance of that business within Australia, it is growing at over 10 percent.

"If we had normalised the result at the same exchange rate over the prior period ... it's still a very, very strong result despite the dollar."

The company planned to continue expanding in Australia, Mr Bracewell said.

The company will pay a first-half dividend of 10 cents per share, up from 9 cents last year.