Fisher & Paykel Finance gets FlexiGroup over the line
All of consumer finance company FlexiGroup's increase in earnings over the 12 months to June came from a business it acquired earlier this year - New Zealand's Fisher & Paykel Finance.Without the contribution from F&P Finance (now called New Zealand Cards), FlexiGroup's profit would have been down about three per cent. Even with the F&P contribution, the company's return on equity is down, its gearing is up, impairment losses are rising and several of its divisions are performing poorly.None of this is news to investors in the company. Recently appointed chief executive Symon Brewis-Weston spelled it all out in a briefing in May, when he announced the results of a strategic review.As a result of that review FlexiGroup is selling a number of non-core businesses and promising to reinvigorate its sales culture.At a briefing to present the company's 2015/16 financial report this week, Brewis-Weston said he was happy with the progress the company was making integrating Fisher & Paykel Finance.The Fisher and Paykel Finance deal is transformational for FlexiGroup, adding 430,000 New Zealand card customers and NZ$620 million of receivables.Receivables grew from $1.4 billion to $2.1 billion in the 12 months to June, largely thanks to the acquisition.FlexiGroup has switched from a proprietary card to a MasterCard in New Zealand and expects to see increased business volumes as a result.The company made a net profit of $50.2 million - down 39 per cent from $82.7 million in the previous year.FlexiGroup made a number of adjustments to arrive at cash profit of $97 million - an increase of eight per cent over the previous year. The adjustments included amortisation of $3.7 million of acquired intangibles, acquisition costs of $5.6 million, impairment of $8.5 million of Think Office Technology goodwill, provisioning of $16.7 million of receivables in Flexi Enterprise and a $12.3 million write-off of fixed assets.Impairment losses rose from $44.5million to $78.6 million.Non-core businesses on the chopping block are wireless broadband marketer Blink, Think Office Technology, Flexi Enterprise, and payments business Paymate.Brewis-Weston said the Certegy division, which sells no-interest finance, needed to have more work done on its business strategy.