Holiday park operator Parkdean announced its annual results to October in line with expectation. Turnover was up 16.3% to £60.4m and like-for-like operating profits rose a lesser 10.2%, absorbing some of the cost of its new head office.

Pre-tax profits rose 0.8% to £9.05m. During the year almost £10m was spent on capex, primarily on replacing some of its caravan fleet. Two acquisitions were also made, taking the total number of parks operated to 20 and increasing the estate by 40%. The Orchard acquisition only contributed 12 days of trading to the latest results and its £41.8m acquisition cost, paid for by a placing and debt, left only £5m of its £78.5m banking facility available. Gearing stands at 117% and interest cover is expected to be 2.4 times prospective earnings, although chairman Graham Wilson claims he is comfortable with any cover above two, considering the company has a healthy cash inflow (£17.5m) and net assets increased 59% to £62.8m. Parkdean is currently negotiating an enlarged debt facility to fund growth both organically and through acquisition. Ideally, the company would like to expand along the east coast. No figures were released for current holiday bookings but Wilson admitted numbers were slightly down from last year as its brochure was issued later, to include all the parks, and reader offers from newspapers appeared later than usual also. House broker Charles Stanley expects pre-tax profits to increase to £12.7m this year. Hold for further growth.