30th Jul 2024 10:47
(Alliance News) - Bodycote PLC on Tuesday announced a profit fall as revenue declined, though it raised its dividend.
The Cheshire, England-based supplier of heat treatments and specialist thermal processing services said pretax profit dived 53% to GBP26.2 million in the first half of 2024, from GBP55.2 million a year prior.
Revenue fell 5.0% to GBP399.0 million from GBP420.1 million. Bodycote however highlighted that Aerospace & Defence had "very strong growth" in the first half, with revenue in the unit up 9.9% to GBP115.7 million from GBP105.3 million. Revenue in Automotive meanwhile declined 9.8% to GBP94.4 million from GBP104.7 million.
Exceptional items costs came in at GBP28.3 million, compared to none a year prior, also hurting the bottom-line.
Despite the decline in profit and revenue, Bodycote declared an interim dividend of 6.9 pence per share, up 3.0% from 6.7p a year prior.
The company left its outlook unchanged, noting it was "well positioned with strong foundations and further opportunities to drive value".
Chief Executive Officer Jim Fairbairn said: "I am excited by the considerable opportunities I see to unlock further value. These include fine-tuning our plant footprint, driving further improvements in operational excellence, optimising our strategy, and simplifying our reporting structure. I look forward to sharing more detail around these plans in due course."
In a separate release, the company said it completed the first tranche of a share buyback programme last week Tuesday. Bodycote said it bought back 4.2 million shares between March 15 and July 23 for a total of GBP30.0 million.
The company announced the second tranche of the share buyback programme started Tuesday and will run until maximum January 30 next year. The maximum amount of shares to be bought back under the second tranche will be 17.7 million. The only purpose of the share buyback programme is to reduce the company's share capital, with the repurchased shares being cancelled.
Bodycote shares were 0.1% higher at 716.00 pence each on Tuesday morning in London.
By Tom Budszus, Alliance News slot editor
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