Cuscal chair ELizabeth Proust
Cuscal has reported a December 2023 half year net profit of A$13.7 million, up five per cent from the prior period.
"Adjusted EBITDA" was 19 per cent higher at $26.8 million.
It is distributing $6.1 million of the net profit to shareholders as an interim dividend, or 3.5 cents per share, steady with the interim dividend in 2022, for a payout ratio of 45 per cent this half.
Cuscal spent $3 million on IPO offer costs during the half, for a planned initial public offering aborted in late 2023.
Hefty costs were also a feature of its profit over the year to June 2023, when net profit lifted 12 per cent to $26.1 million.
In its 2023 annual report, Cuscal said it would pay a full year dividend of 7.5 cents per share, a payout ratio of 50 per cent.
It said at the time it was targeting the same “minimum dividend” in FY2024.
The Cuscal dividend is often an important (and even material) component of the full-year profit of its smaller credit union shareholders.
The demise or deferral of the IPO has received a mixed reception among mutual banks and credit unions, a small minority of whom were openly hostile to an ASX listing for the specialist payments processor (and ADI in its own right), an entity the credit union movement founded nearly 60 years ago.
In the wake of the abandoned IPO Cuscal’s deputy CEO Bianca Bates has recently given notice. She will be joining Smartgroup as chief customer officer.