DCC intends to return up to £800m to shareholders following the sale of its healthcare business, starting shortly with a £100m share buyback programme.
The Dublin-based, FTSE-listed conglomerate agreed to sell DCC Healthcare to HealthCo Investment Ltd last month in a deal that valued the business at £1.05bn (€1.22bn).
The group expects net cash proceeds of £945m from the sale, including an unconditional deferred amount of £130m receivable within two years. The deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter, pending regulatory approval.
Following the completion of the sale, DCC intends to return a further £600m to shareholders, and the final £100m will be returned following receipt of the unconditional deferred consideration.
DCC made an operating profit of £703.6m in the 12 months to the end of March, representing annual growth of 4.9% on a constant currency basis, although revenues declined 4.5% to just over £18bn.
Preliminary results show that DCC Energy made an adjusted operating profit of £535.5m, up 8.5% year-on-year, having sold 15.2bn litres of product with sales of £13.4bn.
Adjusted operating profit from DCC Technology fell 14.2% to £82m from revenue of £4.6bn, and DCC Healthcare reported an adjusted operating profit of £86.1m, up 5.5% from 2024, although the healthcare business made a £1.7m loss after tax.
Excluding DCC Healthcare, group adjusted operating profit rose 4.8% to £617.5m. Profit after tax from continuing operations was £222.9m, down from £287.5m in 2024.
The group made adjusted earnings per share of 470.2 pence, up 5.2% from 455p on a constant currency basis.
DCC reported free cash flow conversion of 84%, indicating continued strong cash generation by the business, although free cash flow fell year-on-year from £681.1m to £588.8m. Return on continuing capital employed was stable at 15.3%.
As of the end of March, DCC had net debt of more than £1.1bn and total equity of under £3.2bn.
“We are pleased to report that we delivered another year of good growth, while making strategic progress to simplify the Group to focus on our opportunity in Energy," said Donal Murphy, CEO of DCC.
"Our sale of DCC Healthcare enables a material return of capital to shareholders. We will focus our efforts on Energy, our largest and highest-returning business. We are energised about the future.”
Photo: Donal Murphy. (Pic: File)
