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Stock Exchange Announcement 2020 full year results 25 February 2021 Serco Group plc LEI : 549300PT2CIHYN5GWJ21 Year ended 31 December Revenue ( 1 ) Underlying Trading Profit ( UTP ) ( ² ) Reported Operating Profit ( i.e. after exceptional items ) ( ² ) Underlying Earnings Per Share ( EPS ) , diluted ( 3 ) Reported EPS ( i.e. after exceptional items ) , diluted Dividend Per Share ( recommended re - instated ) Free Cash Flow ( 4 ) ● ● ● 2020 2019 £ 3,884.8m £ 3,248.4m £ 163.1m £ 120.2m £ 179.2m £ 102.5m 8.43p 10.67p 1.4p ● serco £ 134.9m £ 57.8m £ 460.4m 6.16p 4.21p £ 62.0m £ 214.5m £ 584.4m Adjusted Net Debt ( 5 ) Reported Net Debt ( 6 ) Very strong year across global business in 2020 ; guidance increased for 2021 . Highlights Revenue : grew by 20 % to £ 3.9bn , with organic growth of 16 % , a 5 % uplift from our US acquisition in August 2019 of NSBU and -1 % from currency . Change at Change at reported constant currency currency + 20 % + 20 % + 36 % + 37 % + 75 % + 37 % + 153 % • Underlying Trading Profit : increased by 36 % to £ 163m , with NSBU adding 8 % ; net impact of Covid - 19 around £ 2m , or -1 % of UTP . Margin increased from 3.7 % to 4.2 % . Around three - quarters of our profit ( 7 ) is now from outside the UK . Reported Operating Profit : increased by 75 % , or £ 77m , to £ 179m , as a result of the 36 % increase in underlying profit and an exceptional gain on disposal . Earnings per Share : increased by 37 % on an underlying basis and 153 % on a reported basis . Free Cash Flow : more than doubled , to £ 135m . + 118 % -73 % -21 % Adjusted Net Debt : reduced by £ 157m to £ 58m . Covenant leverage stands at 0.5x EBITDA . Order Intake and Pipeline : some customer decisions slipped from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021 , leading to order intake of £ 3.1bn ( 80 % book - to - bill ) and significant year - on - year increase in year - end qualified pipeline of new business to £ 6.4bn ( 2019 : £ 4.9bn ) . Government support & employee recognition : the Group has repaid all UK government employment and liquidity support , including £ 2m of furlough payments , and has made ex - gratia payments totalling £ 5m to around 50,000 front - line staff . Dividends : the Board recommends restarting dividends , last paid to Serco shareholders in 2014 , with a payment of 1.4p in respect of the 2020 financial year . Acquisitions : in January 2021 we acquired Facilities First Australia ( FFA ) , a leading Australian facilities management company for A $ 78m . In February 2021 we announced the acquisition , subject to regulatory approval , of Whitney , Bradley & Brown Inc ( WBB ) , a leading provider of technical and engineering services to the US military for a consideration of $ 295m . Outlook for 2021 ( 8 ) : having delivered compound annual growth in profits of 33 % over the last three years , we expect revenues and trading profit to continue to grow in 2021 , albeit at a slower rate than seen in recent years . Reflecting a strong start to the year , we have increased our profit guidance for 2021 by 6 % , which equates to year on - year growth at constant currency of 10 % . This excludes the effect of the acquisition of WBB . Guidance will be updated for this following completion . Rupert Soames , Serco Group Chief Executive , said : " In the coming months , every company's trading statement will pay glowing tributes to employees , and thank them for their resilience and courage . I have struggled to think of words that are not trite or clichés and will not be repeated by a thousand other CEOs , so I will use instead the words of a colleague , whose job is escorting prisoners , who wrote to me in January : " Working as a Custody Officer is both challenging and rewarding , yes , the current situation with the virus has certainly changed the way in which we work and has made day to day life more challenging for everyone within Serco but also for the entire world . My husband has cancer and also a disease which has caused him to have no immune system . People have asked me why I would continue to work knowing that every day when I go home to him , I am putting his health at risk . The answer to this question is this : if everyone took that attitude then businesses would suffer more than they are already , people like myself and my colleagues are what keep the contract running , and without my work 1