26th Jul 2018 09:29
LONDON (Alliance News) - Vesuvius PLC said on Thursday reported a record trading profit as its end markets remained favourable in the first half, with the company now expecting to outperform consensus for the full-year.
Vesuvius shares were up 9.1% at 635.00 pence early Thursday, the best performer in the FTSE 250.
The molten metal flow engineering firm said revenue for the first half of 2018 rose 7.9% to GBP897.0 million from GBP831.5 million last year, as pretax profit soared 44% to GBP87.8 million from GBP60.8 million.
Trading profit grew 15% to a "record" GBP99.6 million, as return on sales improved by 70 basis points to 11.1% from 10.4%.
Key steel and foundry end markets were favourable in the first half, and remain "positively oriented", Vesuvius said.
"We had a strong H1 2018, delivering our best half year revenue, trading profit and return on sales since we became an independent company in 2012. We continued to outperform underlying markets thanks to the growth in demand for our value-creating solutions, supported by our increasing investment in R&D," said Chief Executive Patrick Andre.
Andre added that the company is "cautiously optimistic" on its performance over the remainder of the year due to its positive end markets.
"This strength in underlying markets and our continuing implementation of self-help measures underpins our confidence that our full year trading profit will be marginally above the current consensus market expectation," Andre said.
Vesuvius said current market consensus lies to GBP189 million for the year.
The firm increased its interim dividend up 9.1% to 6.00p per share.
Related Shares:
Vesuvius