Business
Interim Announcement
Interim Announcement.
About this update from Alumasc Group Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n RNS Number : 6441G Alumasc Group PLC 04 February 2010 \n \n\nTHE ALUMASC GROUP PLC - INTERIM ANNOUNCEMENT\n \n Interim dividend maintained, the Board's FY PBT expectations unchanged\n \nAlumasc (ALU.L), the premium building and engineering products group, announces another resilient performance in the six months to 31 December 2009, in line with the Board's expectations, against a continuing background of challenging market conditions.\n \nFinancial Highlights\n \n· Revenue down 27% at £44.5m (2008: £60.7m)\n· Underlying* pre-tax profit 47% lower at £1.9m (2008: £3.5m) and underlying* EPS 47% lower at 3.6p (2008: 6.8p)\n· Underlying* pre-tax profit 14% better than in the second half of last year\n· Reported PBT down 39% at £1.6m (2008: £2.7m) and basic EPS down 35% at 3.1p (2008: 4.8p)\n· In the period, net debt was reduced by £1.1m to £9.2m, even though a first half increase is usual due to seasonal factors\n· The interim dividend per share is maintained at 3.25p\n \nCommercial Highlights\n \n· Building Products' revenues of £33.3m were down 22% on the first half of last year and 7% on the second half of last year\n· Following last year's record performance, Levolux, the UK's leading solar shading company, has remained strongly profitable, despite the short-term decline in larger project work\n· Engineering Products' revenues of £11.7m were down 38% on the first half of last year and 9% on the second half of last year\n· Progress in the business recovery programme under the new management team at Alumasc Precision has been encouraging\n \n* excluding restructuring costs, brand amortisation and, in the year ended 30 June 2009, impairment charges\n \nPaul Hooper, Chief Executive, stated \"Alumasc has again delivered a resilient performance, in line with the Board's expectations, against a continuing background of challenging market conditions. The group's sustainable building product businesses have continued to perform relatively well, progress in the performance improvement programme at Alumasc Precision has been encouraging and total fixed cost and efficiency savings delivered since the start of t...