Employee benefits and insurance specialist Personal Group Holdings has increased interim pre-tax profits by five per cent to £4.4 million.

The Milton Keynes-based company increased earnings four per cent to 10.2p a share in the six months to June, with the payout up by the same proportion to 9.9p a share. Turnover was flat at £13.2 million in the six months to June, but Christopher Johnston, chairman and largest shareholder, says new business has risen 14 per cent to record levels.

He maintains ‘the momentum is continuing’, though it involved spending more than £500,000 and that ‘depressed the first-half results’. According to Johnston, renewals are ‘coming through’ and mainstream revenues are progressing well.

AIM-quoted Personal Group is disappointed with sales so far of its Voluntary Group Income Protection product. ‘The take-up was good, but the premiums were low,’ comments Johnston, who says the need now is to sign up more companies to use it for their white-collar employees.

The company ended the first half-year with cash of £7.4 million, compared with £9.2 million at the end of last December and a £10 million drawdown facility. Johnston sounds upbeat, but, in today’s climate, the market has marked the shares down 260p, against 327p last May.

For the longer term, they could fare better than some sector peers.

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Personal Group Holdings	AIM	£67.51m	221.00p	0.00p
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Other company articles:
New business cheers Personal Group			30/09/2008
Profits slip at Personal			31/03/2008
Personal Group makes £8.3m			26/03/2007
Acquisition boosts Personal Group			27/03/2006
Personal Group lifts revenues			26/09/2005