22nd Jan 2020 09:18
(Alliance News) - Masonry products firm Forterra PLC warned on Wednesday first-half 2020 performance is set to fall behind a year before.
Northampton-based Forterra said performance was resilient in the last quarter of 2019, in a tough environment caused by political and economic uncertainty in the UK. As a result, it sees underlying pretax profit for last year meeting board expectations.
In 2018, pretax profit before exceptional items was GBP64.8 million, up 6.1% on 2017.
Looking to 2020, Forterra believes the difficult market conditions will improve "gradually", but first half performance is set to be below that of a year prior. Revenue in the half-year to June last year was GBP193.6 million and pretax profit GBP32.7 million.
Elsewhere, the company said the building of a new plant in Desford, Leicestershire, is going well, with the structure set to be completed in the spring ahead of fit-out and installation.
Forterra will release results for 2019 on March 10.
Shares were down 4.7% on Wednesday morning in London at 338.50 pence each.
By George Collard; [email protected]
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