26th Jul 2019 09:32
(Alliance News) - IMI PLC on Friday posted a broadly unchanged profit for the first half of 2019, in line with expectations, with revenue down slightly due to some market weakness and an expected drop in Critical Engineering.
The engineering firm's pretax profit for the six months to June 30 was GBP92.7 million, a very slight decline from GBP92.9 million the year prior, as revenue inched downwards to GBP910 million from GBP914 million.
"Results for the first half of the year are in-line with expectations and reflect good margin performances in Critical Engineering and Hydronic Engineering. Continued weakness in Precision Engineering's Industrial Automation markets, together with the expected revenue decline in Critical Engineering, were the principal drivers of the slight reduction in group revenue. Cash flow for the group was also good," said IMI.
The company raised its dividend per share by 2.1% to 14.9 pence from 14.6p paid a year earlier.
At present, IMI is undertaking a strategic review and has identified the "need to change and improve" its business and is looking within Precision Engineering to see which Industrial Automation segments should be prioritised.
IMI Chief Executive Roy Twite said: "Our strategic review process is focused on developing a plan to increase value for all our stakeholders. We are looking at all aspects of our business and we will report on the outcome of the review with the 2019 preliminary results. In the meantime, we have immediately implemented a number of important profitable growth initiatives to optimise our performance."
"The trading outlook for the group remains substantially unchanged. In the second half of 2019 we continue to expect that organic revenue will experience a decline similar to that in the first half, when compared with the same period in 2018. Nonetheless, second half profits are expected to be similar to last year, supported by the business improvement initiatives pursued by each of the three divisions."
Shares in IMI were up 0.2% at 1,034.00 pence on Friday morning in London.
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