31st Jul 2018 09:26
LONDON (Alliance News) - IMI PLC said Tuesday its first-half profit and revenue increased as it expects its full-year results to be slight ahead of expectations.
The FTSE 250-listed engineering company increased pretax profit in the six months ended June by 5% to GBP93 million from GBP89 million.
IMI's revenue in the first half increased 8% to GBP914 million from GBP848 million the year before.
The company's first-half results were ahead of expectations due to progress from its Critical Engineering and Precision Engineering divisions.
Critical Engineering increased its divisional revenue by 3.6% to GBP319 million from GBP308 million with a 4.7% increase in operating profit to GBP36.0 million from GBP34.4 million.
The Precision Engineering division increased its revenue 16% to GBP449 million from GBP388 million the year before. Its operating profit increased 23% to GBP75.0 million from GBP61.2 million.
IMI is proposing a 3% rise in its interim dividend to 14.6 pence per share from 14.2 pence per share the previous year.
Looking ahead, the company believes its outlook remains positive. IMI expects its organic revenue and profits to "show good improvement" compared to last year.
As a result, IMI anticipates its full year 2018 results "will be slightly ahead of current market expectations".
Chief Executive Mark Selway said: "The recent positive momentum in some of our most important markets continued through the first half of the year. Critical Engineering delivered increased revenues, profits and margins through a combination of rationalisation benefits and Value Engineering. Precision Engineering generated good sales and margin growth, with strong profit drop through, while Hydronic Engineering has largely completed the changes necessary to deliver substantially improved margins in the second half of the year."
Shares in IMI were up 6.8% Tuesday morning at 1,246.00 pence each.
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