LONDON, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Engineering firm Morgan Crucible Co Plc. beat
expectations with a 9.1 percent increase in first half pretax profit, boosted by
defence and petrochemicals sales, and said it was confident it would meet
full-year forecasts.
Morgan Crucible, which makes carbon and ceramic components for industry,
including body armour for British and U.S. forces reported pretax profit of 39.5
million pounds for the six months to July 4 on sales 15.4 percent higher at
401.2 million pounds.
Consensus estimates supplied by the group forecast pretax profit of 38.4
million pounds on sales of 389.5 million pounds.
The firm, which recently completed the $145 million acquisition of
ceramics businesses, Certech and Carpenter Advanced Ceramics, from Carpenter
Technology Corp., hiked the interim dividend by 11.1 percent to 2.50 pence per
share.
The group said it had increased the proportion of sales coming from the
defence, aerospace and petrochemical sectors during the period, while reducing
its exposure to the more commoditised automotive, consumer goods and telecoms
markets.
Morgan also said it had continued to reduce its cost base during the
period and migrated more production to lower cost manufacturing countries such
as China.
The group's CEO Mark Robertshaw said Morgan Crucible's "increasingly
resilient end-market mix ... with a geographically diverse and well-balanced
manufacturing footprint leaves us well placed to succeed going forward".
Turnover in the firm's carbon division increased 7.2 percent, while
technical ceramics sales rose 26.3 percent and insulating ceramics delivered a
15.6 percent hike in revenues.
Stock in Morgan Crucible has performed in line with other London-listed
electronic and electrical equipment makers since the start of 2008.
Its shares, which have fallen 4 percent since the turn of the year,
closed 3 percent up on Tuesday, valuing the company at around 540 million
pounds.
(Reporting by Rhys Jones; Editing by Louise Ireland) Keywords:
MORGANCRUCIBLE/
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