Primary Health ends 3yrs of profit drops
Primary Health Care has ended three years of falling profits by lifting first-half profit 4.7 per cent to $22.1 million despite another drop in earnings at its medical centres.
SYDNEY - [AAP] Primary Health Care (ASX: PRY) has ended three years of falling profits by lifting first-half profit 4.7 per cent to $22.1 million despite another drop in earnings at its medical centres.
The company says net profit for the six months to December 31 had risen from $21.1 million a year ago, with a good performance from its pathology business and reduced corporate costs offsetting a 25 per cent fall in earnings before interest and tax from its medical centres.
The company says it is midway through overhauling its GP contracts after restrictive terms were blamed for a shortage of practitioners that had hit medical centre performance over recent years.
"We have developed shortened and simplified HCP contracts with far fewer legal restraints," chief executive Malcolm Parmenter said in a statement on Friday.
"We have a new head of the Medical Centres recruitment team and a greater number of internal recruiters who understand the skills set they are looking for."
Dr Parmenter said Primary will have opened four new medical centres, an IVF clinic, a day surgery, and an imaging site by the end of the current financial year.
Primary raised its interim dividend by 0.3 cents to a fully franked 5.1 cents and reiterated full-year guidance for underlying net profit of between $92 million and $97 million.
PRIMARY'S H1 PICK-UP
* Net profit up 4.7pc to $22.1m
* Revenue up 5.9pc to $856.5m
* Interim dividend up 0.3 cents to 5.1 cents, fully franked
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