Aristocrat starts the year off right with a strong first half result
Stock
Aristocrat (ALL) $28.67 as at 23/05/2019
Event
Gaming company Aristocrat has jumped to 6 month highs in today’s session on the back of a solid first half result.
The gambling leveraged play posted a normalized net profit of $422m for the 6 months, up 17% on the same period last year, coming in slightly ahead of estimates for the half.
The EBITDA figure of $766.3m was a 19% improvement, and bettered consensus by nearly 5%. The stock is trading 7.8% better today.
The result was driven by some growth out of the company’s America arm, however the performance of the digital arm has been hailed as the reason for the pop in the share price. At the full year announcement last year, the market sold the stock fearing the digital investment would struggle to meet forecast returns however stable growth over the half has eased the concern.
Aristocrat also expects incremental gains out of the American arm, seen as an integral part to the company’s current valuation. Positive commentary here has certainly assisted the stock jump today.
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