Fishers show £874,000 profit on £24m turnover in first year

FISHERS International, the insurance and financial services group, formerly known as Celtic Gold, has announced a pretax profit of £874,000 sterling for 1995.

The first annual results for the former exploration company show a turnover of £24 million.

Alter paying a maiden interim dividend, Fishers has now declared a final dividend of 0.2p net per share, making a total of 0.32p. It is covered 1.8 times by available earnings.

The company recorded similar profits in the first and second six months. However, the first half bad a profit contribution from Fishers - it was acquired by Celtic - for only five months, while the second half had a six month contribution, indicating an underlying downward trend.

The group's chief executive, Mr Kevin Kenny, attributed the decline to the completion of phase one of its loss adjusting contract with the Kuwaiti government in the first half. This led to a significant revenue reduction in the second.

However, phase two of the contract which involves industrial claims against Iraq over damages suffered during the Gulf War, is expected to start before the end of this year.

This, he said, should lead to further revenue from this source in 1996.

The British loss adjusting business had a difficult first half. However, this recovered well and "produced a satisfactory overall performance for the year", the group said.

The home insurance business enjoyed strong growth, with gross premiums rising from £6 million to around £15 million. The number of policy holders grew by over 70 per cent to 400,000.

The latest results reflect the acquisition of Fishers, the write off of the historic deficit in the revenue reserves and the sale of the exploration interests for £1.1 million in return for shares in Celtic Resources Holdings.

Net borrowings amount to £545,000, which represent 27 per cent of the shareholders' funds of £2.05 million.

Fishers is expected to grow strongly this year. This will come from core operations, from Fishers Farley, a specialist claims investigation company set up last year; and from Miller Knight and Robert Bishop acquired this year.

If the takeover talks with a financial services company are successfully completed, profits will also come from this source. Fishers appears to be on course to double profits to £1.7 million and double earnings per share to 1.2p this year.