1st Mar 2019 08:09
LONDON (Alliance News) - Coats Group PLC on Friday said its annual profit decreased slightly despite a rise in revenue due to higher administrative costs.
Coats shares were trading down 4.6% at 84.20 pence each early Friday.
For 2018, the FTSE 250 industrial thread manufacturer posted pretax profit of USD122.8 million compared to USD129.5 million a year ago. The slip in profitability was mainly due to higher administrative expense, rising to USD214.9 million from USD202.0 million a year ago.
Revenue meanwhile rose 4% year-on-year to USD1.42 billion from USD1.36 billion.
By business, Apparel & Footwear revenue was flat year-on-year while Performance Materials sales rose by 20% to USD332 million.
However, Coats upped its total dividend by 15% to 1.66 US cents from 1.44 cents paid to shareholders a year ago. This was after proposing a final dividend of 1.16 cents per share.
Looking ahead, Coats expressed confidence in its 2019 outlook.
"We enter 2019 in a strong position, with continued positive momentum in our core Apparel and Footwear and hi-tech Performance Materials businesses," Chief Executive Rajiv Sharma said.
He added: "Whilst we are cautious around the current macroeconomic uncertainties, based on our current assessment of business trends we remain confident in delivering another year of improving performance through effective execution of our strategy."
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