By - Neha Simpy
Highlights:
- Eagers Automotive Limited (ASX: APE) shares are having a dream run over the past few days.
- The stock has soared nearly 19% in the last five trading sessions till Tuesday, 28 February 2023.
- For FY22, the company announced a 100% franked distribution of 49 cps, a 15% increase on pcp’s 42.5 cps.
Automotive retail company Eagers Automotive Limited (ASX: APE) shares have been on a dream run on ASX over the last few days. APE shares ended Tuesday, 28 February 2023, 1.107% higher at AU$13.69. Including Tuesday's gains, the stock has rallied nearly 19% in the last five trading sessions. Most of these gains have come after the announcement of its FY22 results ended 31 December 2022 on last Thursday, 23 February 2023. The stock closed the day at AU$13, soaring by 8.969%.
Let’s scan through Eagers’ FY22 results.
Eagers Automotive FY22 financial highlights
During FY22, Eagers Automotive’s statutory profit before tax declined to AU$442.2 million versus AU$456.8 million in FY21 and statutory profit after tax stood at AU$324.3 million, down from pcp’s AU$330.7 million. This was probably higher than the street expectation as higher interest rates were expected to dampen automobile demand in the second half of 2022. However, actually, things turned out to be better than it was expected. Operationally, the second half of 2022 was much better for the company as it booked record operating profit before tax of AU$405.2 million against AU$401.8 million in FY21.
Eagers' order book for new cars has surged by 74.4% since December 2021. Its parts and service business also did well despite COVID-related disruptions caused to supply chain.
Eagers Automotive FY22 dividend
The company declared a 100% franked final dividend of 49 cps, a 15% increase on pcp’s 42.5 cps. Eagers Automotive already paid an interim dividend of 22 cps in September last year, bringing the total dividend for FY22 to 71 cps, versus FY21’s 62.5 cps and special distribution of 8.4 cps.
The final dividend will be paid on 31 March this year and has an ex-date of 15 March and a record date of 16 March.
APE shares extended gains on Wednesday as well. At the time of drafting, the stock was up 1.17% to trade at AU$13.850, outperforming the broader ASX 200 index, which was down 0.08% at 7,252.80.
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as of 01/03/2023, 01:12:58 PM AEDT