18th Jun 2015 09:20
LONDON (Alliance News) - MS International PLC Thursday said its performance was "much improved" in the second six-month block of its financial year, though pretax profit still fell by about half in the year as a whole.
The engineering products and services firm also announced a Dutch acquisition to fold into its petrol-station superstructure business.
MS International's pretax profit fell to GBP1.5 million in the year ended May 2, compared with GBP2.9 million in the prior year, as revenue fell to GBP45.5 million from GBP47.1 million. Its dividend for the year remained at 8 pence per share.
The group's defence business, where most its revenue is made, has been hit by challenging conditions as governments cut military spending, hurting the company's overall earnings, evidenced by a fall in first-half pretax profit to GBP71,000 from GBP1.9 million in the corresponding period of the prior year. MS International said it expects an improvement in the defence division's activity in the second half of the current financial year.
The company's defence business, which designs manufactures and services defence equipment remained the company's main source of revenue, even as sales fell to GBP17.0 million from GBP19.4 million. Revenue for the division responsible for designing and constructing petrol station superstructures fell to GBP13.4 million from GBP13.6 million. The forgings manufacturing division's revenue increased to GBP15.1 million from GBP14.1 million.
Chairman Michael Bell said the group's order book was "marginally lower" at the end of its last financial year than the GBP46 million reported for 2014, but has since increased due to a contract won with the UK Ministry of Defence worth more than GBP12 million.
Separately, MS International said it has acquired Petrol Sign BV, a company based in the Netherlands, from Lambooij Holdings BV for EUR3.4 million on a cash and debt free basis, including "normalised" working capital.
"Petrol Sign designs, restyles, produces and installs the complete appearance of petrol station superstructures and forecourts. The acquisition will enhance and widen the ability of the company's petrol-station superstructure division to offer a more complete package of services to customers," MS International said.
Petrol Sign made a pretax profit of EUR446,000 on revenue of EUR4.2 million in 2014.
MS International shares were up 17% at 166.00p on Thursday morning.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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