28th Jan 2015 07:30
LONDON (Alliance News) - Johnson Matthey PLC Wednesday stuck with its full-year guidance, after reporting a 1% increase in its pretax profit before exceptional items in the third quarter of its financial year, buoyed by strong sales from its emission control technologies business.
In a statement, the emissions and process technology company said pretax profit excluding impairments, restructuring charges, tax changes and any profits or losses on dipsosals was GBP96.5 million in the three months to end-December, up from GBP96.0 million. The growth was capped after it lost about GBP10 million in commission income from Anglo American Platinum. Excluding this, its underlying pretax profit grew at a double-digit rate.
Sales rose 5% to GBP745 million, from GBP708 million a year earlier, with growth in emission control technologies and new businesses offsetting decline in precious metal products and fine chemicals. process technology sales were flat.
"The outlook for the divisions in the current financial year remains unchanged from that given in our half-yearly report. Consequently, we continue to expect the group's underlying profit before tax in 2014/15 to be slightly ahead of 2013/14, despite the adverse impact from the loss of commission revenue from Anglo Platinum in the first three quarters of the year and the effect of foreign currency translation in the first half," the company said in its trading statement.
Johnson Matthey reported an underlying pretax profit of GBP406.6 million in fiscal 2014, up from GBP382.9 million in fiscal 2013.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Johnson Matthey