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Press Release

BGL Results 2010/11


Immediate release: 05 October 2011

The BGL Group has today published its financial results for the year July 2010 to June 2011. BGL Group Chief Executive Peter Winslow reports another year of strong performance, including significant business wins, contract extensions and profit growth.

BGL Group is reporting pre-tax profits of £72 million, which is a year on year growth of 16 per cent.

BGL Group Chief Executive, Peter Winslow said: "I'm pleased that 2010/11 was once again a successful year of trading for our Group, and saw us deliver continued profit growth. Our programme of financial investment and business development continues as part of our strategy to take the company to the next level."

This result is put into context of the past two year’s results below.

  2010/11 2009/10 2008/09
Pre tax profit £72 million £62 million £54 million
Profit growth 16 per cent 16 per cent 24 per cent
Number of customers 3.9 million 3.5 million 2.7 million

There were a number of important milestones which underpin this successful result. A few of the key highlights are:

  • Expansion of comparethemarket.com's 'meerkat' campaign, which has reinforced the business' position as a leading player in the aggregator market and created a platform for a new strategy to reward loyal customers from July 2011. A spin-off success of the marketing campaign was the launch of 'A Simples Life', Aleksandr Orlov’s autobiography which topped the Sunday Times Christmas Best Seller list.
  • Junction had success in retaining its contract with M&S Money* for another five years and agreeing a contract extension with RACi. Focus now turns to expanding business opportunities for Junction’s client portfolio.
  • Launch of Guaranteed Acceptance Life cover which is now available to all Budget customers. This was a market innovation for the brand and sees the UK's first 'instant' life insurance policy made available to customers buying general insurance.
  • Bennetts celebrated its 80th birthday and, to involve its valued customer base with this milestone anniversary, invested £80,000 in making bikers' dreams come true. Its record sales and retention rates have highlighted the effectiveness of its strategy to keep bikers at the heart of everything Bennetts does.
  • An impressive performance by ACM, underpinned by close working relationships with a portfolio of respected suppliers which ensures our customers receive the support they need when they've had an accident.
  • Increased customer satisfaction as 71% of customers polled in September 2010 said they were 'very satisfied' or 'extremely satisfied' with the service received - a four per cent increase on the 2009 score. Structural changes within Fusion's contact centres will further support customer satisfaction by ensuring that there is no need to transfer calls to other departments.
  • The year saw the expansion of Fusion Outsourcing Services in South Africa, as it secured a number of key contracts to provide call centre services to third parties. BGL also acquired French price comparison business, Courtanet, and work continues to replicate the success of comparethemarket.com in the French market.
  • A result of this growth has been the creation of over 800 jobs during the year, both in South Africa and the UK, which also included the successful launch of a new contact centre apprenticeship scheme for 16-18 year olds.
  • Finally, sharing success beyond BGL and its partners has been equally important. A combination of fundraising and corporate donations has delivered just over £470,000 to charitable causes. Two Group-wide initiatives alone, BGL's inaugural Dragon Boat Tournament and a Hospice to Hospice walking challenge which saw employees cover a combined total of over 2,500 miles, generated over £70,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care, one of BGL's charity partners.

Peter Winslow concluded: "We pride ourselves on creating prosperity. To us, this means operating a profitable business that positively influences our stakeholders: our people, partners, customers and our local communities. I'm proud of the contribution we've made to all of these groups over the past 12 months."