Micro Focus turns to cash in lieu of growth Micro Focus turned to an increasingly generous dividend after the software company reported lacklustre growth in its annual results. The group increased its dividend 45.1 per cent year-on-year to 11.9 cents after revenues at the group fell. Micro Focus, which has a market capitalisation of £851m, has returned $314m to shareholders in the past 12 months. The move came as revenues slipped 5.4 per cent to $207.3m for the six months to October 31 with the group's consultancy business accounting for the bulk of the drop. Kevin Loosemore, executive chairman, said: "We are not a high growth company. By meeting analyst expectations we can return double digit returns to shareholders. Micro Focus, which dominates the market in software that uses Cobol - a programming language used in everything from cash machines to airline reservation systems - is the latest UK software company to suffer from slowing growth. Shares in rival Sage slipped on Wednesday after the northeast based software company reported slowing organic growth. Despite the lack of growth Micro Focus's management claim that they will avoid a similar fate, by focusing on returning cash to shareholders. "In a world with a degree of uncertainty, we're almost like a high yield bond," said Mr Loosemore. Cash conversion at the group dipped slightly from 99.8 per cent of adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to 92.8 per cent. Micro Focus has had a turbulent recent history, running through two chief executives and a finance director in short order, and attracting the unfulfilled attentions of Bain Capital, the US private equity group. Strong results earlier this year, where annual pre-tax profits rose 30 per cent year-on-year, put the group back on track. Bottom line growth was slightly more subdued in the proceeding period, with pre-tax profit up 0.8 per cent year on year to $76.4m. Diluted earnings per share rose 13.3 per cent to 35.6c. Micro Focus's consultancy division saw its revenue fall by more than a third year-on-year on a constant currency basis to $8.6m as the group turns away from the sector. "We're really a software company," said Mr Loosemore. We will do some consultancy - it won't go to zero. Micro Focus said it would maintain its current research spending levels, which stand at around 30 per cent of the group's licensing revenue. Overall revenues from licences rose 0.4 per cent year-on-year to $85.3m. Shares in the group rose 0.2 per cent to 571½p.