By Anthony O. Goriainoff
Essentra said it swung to a pretax profit for the first half after booking lower costs, and backed the board’s expectations for the year.
The FTSE 250-listed supplier of plastic and fiber products said Wednesday that pretax profit came to 10.3 million pounds ($13.1 million) for the half, compared with a loss of GBP10.7 million the year before.
Adjusted pretax profit–a metric which strips out exceptional and other one-off items–was GBP23 million compared with GBP3.4 million.
Revenue fell to GBP166.3 million from GBP175.9 million as like-for-like sales slid 10%–excluding an acquisition–and a strong comparative the year prior.
The board declared an interim dividend of 1.2 pence a share, compared with 2.3 pence.
“We expect to make further progress in the second half of the year, supported by continued cost management initiatives, maintaining our pricing actions, and delivering new business wins. Our strong balance sheet supports organic growth and further investment in disciplined, value enhancing M&A,” Chief Executive Scott Fawcett said.
Shares at 0740 GMT were up 4.20 pence, or 2.7%, at 159.40 pence.
Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at [email protected]
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