Infection prevention and contamination control group Tristel (TSTL:AIM) released strong revenue growth of 18% to £26m for the full year to 30 June 2019, pushing the shares up 3.6% to 304p.

The UK saw accelerating growth of 9% (2%), while continuing international expansion drove 26% growth and overseas business now accounts for 55% of group revenue.

Pre-tax profit advanced by 19% to £5.6m, but adding back share based compensation, given they are a real expense; profit was up by 18% to £4.7m.

Chief executive Paul Swinney said, ‘top-line growth was driven by our overseas operations and this trend should continue with the acquisition of four of our main European distributors during the year and shortly after the year-end.’

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The company has been preparing for entry into the US and confirmed that a response to its pre-submission request to the US federal drug authority is expected in December. The potential revenue opportunity should allow the company to double its current revenues over the longer-term.

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The company plans to grow revenues in a range of 10% to 15% out to 2021, having achieved 15% per year over the last five years.

Long-term growth potential is underpinned by increasing regulation and standards across the world which increases demand for safe, high-level disinfectants that kill all micro-organisms.

In terms of profits, the company had historically targeted reaching pre-tax margins of 17.5%, which it beat handsomely over the last three-years, averaging 21%, despite expensing around £1.5m of costs preparing for the entry into the US.

Going forward, management have decided that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) are a better measure as they expect to capitalise more product development. It has set an EBITDA margin target of 25%.

The company generated strong cash flow from operations of £7.1m, up 16% year-on-year which represents 27% of revenues. After spending £4.7m on acquisitions the company had net cash on the balance sheet of £4.2m.

The dividend was raised by 21% to 5.54p which is covered two times by earnings per share of 11.08p.

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Issue Date: 16 Oct 2019