Price comparison website Gocompare FY revenue rises 19 percent

(Reuters) - Price comparison website Gocompare.Com Group Plc on Tuesday reported a 19 percent jump in full-year revenue to about 142 million pounds ($172.15 million) and said it had started 2017 from a "position of confidence".

Shares in Gocompare, which have risen 1.4 percent since their listing in November, were up 7.7 percent at 73.2 pence at 0814 GMT (3.14 a.m. ET) on the London Stock Exchange.

The company, which demerged from British insurer esure Group Plc , said adjusted operating profit for the year ended Dec. 31, 2016 would rise 30 percent to 30 million pounds from a year earlier, at the top end of its guidance.

"The trading update will be taken positively... the company has been able to beat consensus expectations at the first time of asking and... has been able to achieve the guidance that it set out at the demerger," RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a note. The analysts have an "outperform" rating on the stock.

Gocompare allows customers to compare insurance rates and prices of financial, travel and business products, utilities and household services.

Leverage, or net debt to adjusted EBITDA, fell to 2x from 2.8x at the time of the demerger, Gocompare said.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair and Subhranshu Sahu)

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