8th Sep 2015 09:02
LONDON (Alliance News) - Electronic technologies company Stadium Group PLC on Tuesday hiked its interim dividend despite its pretax profit falling due to higher operating costs, as its underlying performance in the first half proved strong.
Stadium said its pretax profit for the six months to the end of June was GBP670,000, down from GBP799,000 a year earlier. The fall in profit came despite revenue for the group rising to GBP25.1 million from GBP19.8 million, as a rise in operating costs offset the better sales performance.
Still, the group lifted interim dividend to 0.9 pence per share, up from 0.7p.
The revenue growth was driven by a very strong performance in its technology products arm, where revenue more than doubled to GBP11.0 million from GBP5.0 million and where better sales of higher margin products helped the group's gross margin up to 21.65 from 20.6%. The order book for the technology products unit also rose, up 30% to GBP15.5 million from the volumes on its books at the end of 2014.
Stadium said its United Wireless unit also performed well, with sales rising 26% in the half, and the company said it has completed work on a new manufacturing facility in China.
"The group continued to perform strongly in the first half of the year and is trading in line with our expectations. The period saw us make significant progress with our strategic objective to transition Stadium from a traditional electronic manufacturing service business to an integrated technology-led organisation," said Nick Brayshaw, Stadium's chairman.
"With the evolution of our three regional design centres, upgraded Asia facility, expanding market for wireless, and the acquisition of Stontronics after the period end, we are excited about the future prospects of the business. We are pleased to see progressive growth in our order book for Technology Products, which underpins our confidence in the full year outlook," Brayshaw added.
Shares in Stadium were up 2.4% to 130.00 pence on Tuesday.
By Sam Unsted; [email protected]; @SamUAtAlliance
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