20th May 2014 09:33
LONDON (Alliance News) - Spirax-Sarco Engineering PLC Tuesday said that trading in the first four months of the year have been in line its expectations, driven by strong growth in the Americas, and at its two main businesses, Steam Specialties and Watson-Marlow Pumps.
The manufacturer of boiler and pipe control valves for steam heating and process plants said its operating profit in the four months to end of April was up on last year on a reported and constant currency basis, supported by higher sales and relatively flat material input costs.
Organic sales were up nearly 4%, with acquisitions adding nearly 1%, it said. However, it also warned of adverse currency movements, which its said reduced sales in the period, leaving reported sales marginally lower than the prior year.
"We continue to assume that our markets will exhibit low levels of growth, in line with modest overall improvement in industrial production growth through the course of 2014," the company said in a statement.
Spirax Sarco shares were trading 2.1% higher at 2,844.00 pence Tuesday morning, one of the biggest gains on the FTSE 250.
Spirax Sarco said that sales growth so far this year was the strongest in the America, with increases in both North and Latin America.
It said its Watson-Marlow business traded well in the period, boosted by a contribution from Bio Pure, while it said it has seen modest growth in its steam specialties business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In Asia Pacific, it said it built a larger project-based backlog that the previous year.
Spirax Sarco said it will publish its results for the first-half of the year on August 7.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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