16th Sep 2015 08:14
LONDON (Alliance News) - Building products manufacturer Epwin Group PLC on Wednesday said cost cutting measures helped to improve its margins and increase its profit in the first half of the year, as revenue nudged down amid a flat market.
Epwin's pretax profit for the six months to the end of June was GBP7.6 million, compared to a GBP4.4 million profit a year earlier, despite revenue edging down to GBP124.1 million from GBP125.2 million amid what the company described as a broadly stagnating market.
Despite those challenging market conditions, the company said it remains on track to meet its expectations for the full year and said it managed to improve its margins despite making investments in property and equipment to back the launch of new window products in 2016.
The group will pay an interim dividend of 2.12 pence per share, substantially higher than the 1.41 pence it paid a year earlier thanks to the improvement in profit.
Epwin said the repair, maintenance and improvement market in the UK for the social housing and new build sectors has yet to show signs of a sustainable recovery and may have even worsened in the second quarter due to slowing activity around the UK General Election in May.
"In what we believe has been an overall flat market for our products in the first half of the year, the group continues to make good progress in pursuing its core strategies aimed at growing operating profit margins and cash. The results for the period demonstrate that we continue to deliver operational improvements to enhance earnings and leverage the scale of the business in anticipation of improving market conditions to come," said Chief Executive Jon Bednall.
"Into the second half of the year, and beyond, the board considers that we remain well placed to deliver our operating profit and are positioned to capitalise on future market growth opportunities, whilst continuing to pursue appropriate value enhancing acquisitions as they may arise," Bednall added.
Shares in Epwin were down 1.1% to 135.00 pence on Wednesday.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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