9th Mar 2015 07:50
LONDON (Alliance News) - ABCAM PLC said Monday it is on track to meet its financial and strategic targets for its full year, as it posted a rise in pretax profit for its first half.
The life science research tools supplier proposed an interim dividend of 2.29 pence for the half year to end-December 2014, up from 2.13 pence a year before.
ABCAM posted a pretax profit of GBP22.1 million, up from GBP21.2 million a year before, as a 7.7% rise in revenue to GBP66.7 million from GBP62.0 million was partly offset by an increase in administration costs.
Revenue was held back by the strength of sterling, particularly against the Japanese yen, and on a constant currency basis revenue rose 13.8%.
The strengthening of the sterling against the yen also meant that ABCAM saw a decline in revenue in Japan, despite seeing growth of 11% on a constant currency basis.
ABCAM said the return to higher government funding levels is "welcome", and has provided liquidity for labs to purchase its products.
Revenues fell in ABCAM's custom services business as it continued to scale down the business, and royalties and licence fees growth was flat in the period. It expects its royalties and licence fees to decline over time as legacy agreements drop off.
"We've achieved underlying double-digit sales growth in all regions and product categories and are confident we are taking the right actions to achieve our multi-year strategy goals.We remain on track to meet both our financial and strategic targets for the full year 2015," said Chief Executive Officer Alan Hirzel in a statement.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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