4th Aug 2016 07:35
LONDON (Alliance News) - British pottery firm Portmeirion Group PLC Thursday hiked its interim dividend 15% despite reporting a drop in profit during the first half after its margin was squeezed.
The firm managed to lift revenue in the half to GBP28.5 million from GBP27.9 million last year, but its operating costs also rose and the operating profit declined to only GBP1.4 million from GBP1.7 million a year ago.
That resulted in the pretax profit for the half falling to GBP1.4 million from GBP1.8 million last year, whilst earnings per shares declined to 9.87 pence from 13.01 pence.
Still, in line with the rise to the final dividend of 2015, Portmeirion increased its interim dividend to 7.0 pence per share from 6.10 pence last year.
"This has been a challenging period for the group. As we announced in July we were disappointed by the reduction in demand in some of our Asian markets and the consequent effects we expect this to have on our 2016 results. We strongly believe that this is a short term set back and we remain confident in our medium and long term prospects," said Non-Executive Chairman Dick Steele.
Portmeirion shares were down 2.5% to 890.0 pence per share on Thursday morning.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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