IPF upbeat after ‘good start’

INTERNATIONAL Personal Finance, the credit lender and former international division of Yorkshire-based Provident Financial, has said it had made an encouraging start to 2010 with the help of improved economic conditions.

The Leeds-based group said it had made a £2m pre-tax profit over the first quarter of the year, compared to an £8.5m loss over the same period in 2009.

Credit issued was up 11% year on year, while its operations in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia saw profit up by 11% over last year despite the impact of bad weather.

In Hungary, IPF said it was close to breaking even over the first quarter and in Mexico profit was up by £3.1m.

Romanian operations broke even in the first quarter and are on track for 2010 profit.

IPF previously reported a dip in profits before tax of £61.7m for 2009, on revenues of £550.2m.

In today’s interim management statement, IPF said: “IPF has made a good start to 2010 with credit issued and profit much better than the first quarter of 2009, despite the adverse impact of the severe weather conditions in Poland in the opening eight weeks of the year.

“This reflects improved economic conditions, our careful management of lending criteria and tight management of costs.”
 
Borrowings at the end of March were £339m compared with £348m at the end of last year and IPF said it had sufficient committed bank facilities to fund existing operations through to October 2011.