King Charles’ cleaner ups dividend after revenue surge

The official cleaner for King Charles III has upped its dividend as the facilities management business said it was able to get its customer base to dig deeper into their wallets.

FTSE 250 member Mitie, which was recently awarded a Royal Warrant by appointment by Charles for services to the Royal Household,  is to issue a final dividend of 3.1p, taking its total dividend to 4.5p, an increase of 5 per cent on the previous year.

“The King is very happy with us,” outgoing chief executive Phil Bentley said, adding that the warrant was “proudly displayed in our office in the Shard.”

Mitie customers open their wallets

Mitie posted a 10.5 per cent jump in revenue to £5.6bn for the year to end March, though pre-tax profit fell as a result of the costs of its £350m acquisition of rival Marlowe.

The firm, which operates a fleet of robotic cleaners which patrol Heathrow airport overnight, said part of its sales growth, as well as its expected future revenue growth, derived from extracting more value from existing customers by expanding the breadth and depth of services offered.

“Mitie’s long-term value creation potential and foundations for the next phase of our strategy continue to be strengthened: capturing client ‘share of wallet’ in Facilities Management through deeper relationships,” Bentley said.

“Over the medium-term, we see significant opportunities to increase ‘share of wallet’ in Facilities Management by c.£1.5bn, through the addition of service lines to our existing strategic client accounts.”

Mitie shares rose 2.2 per cent to 178p. The stock is up by 7.8 per cent since the start of the year.

Bentley said the firm’s search for a new chief executive is “well underway” after he confirmed speculation that he would shortly be departing the business.

The veteran executive, who has led the facilities management business since 2016 and spearheaded its £350m Marlowe acquisition, said he expected to exit in the new year.