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Nicholas Grove is a Morningstar journalist.

Domino's delivers rise in profit, dividend

Domino's Pizza Enterprises (DMP) has posted a 25.7 per cent rise in net profit to $26.9 million for the 2012 fiscal year, on the back of strong sales.

Same-store sales for the year rose 6.5 per cent year over year, while total network sales rose 7.9 per cent to $805.3 million, the company said.

Earnings per share (EPS) rose 24.3 per cent to 38.9 cents a share.

As a result of the strong earnings, Domino's said it will pay shareholders a final fully franked dividend of 14.1 cents a share, in addition to the interim dividend of 13 cents a share.

This brings the full-year dividend to 27.1 cents, reflecting a 70.2 per cent payout ratio and a rise of 23.7 per cent on the previous year.

The final dividend will be paid on 14 September 2012 with a record date of 28 August 2012, Domino's said.

Both the profit and dividend came in slightly ahead of Morningstar's expectations.

"Although softening economic trends are rightfully the central theme for most company results this year, Domino's didn't get the memo," Morningstar equities analyst Michael Higgins said.

"We anticipated impressive results and weren't disappointed."

During the year under review, Domino's added 62 stores to its network, comprising 24 stores in Australia and New Zealand, and 38 stores in Europe.

Looking to fiscal 2013, Domino's CEO Don Meij said the company expects to deliver a net profit about 15 per cent higher than 2012, and to add 70 to 80 new stores to its network.

"We expect to have a record number of organic new store openings, particularly in our three European countries (France, Belgium and The Netherlands), and hope to open our 1000th group store by December 2013," Meij said.

"Our pipeline of store development in Europe is the strongest it has been since we entered the market in 2005."

In Australia, Domino's said it expects online sales to make up 55-60 per cent of total sales by June 2013, with 50 per cent of this to be made up of mobile orders.