Judges Scientific lifts interim dividend, sees FY ahead of expectations

Judges Scientific hiked its interim dividend by 15% on Friday as it reported a jump in profit and said it’s confident of exceeding market expectations for the full year as it recovers from the initial impact of the pandemic.

In the six months to 30 June, adjusted pre-tax profit rose 31.5% to £8.5m on revenue of £43m, up 14.7% on the same period a year ago. The interim dividend per share was lifted to 19p from 16.5p.

Judges said the first half of 2021 marked a significant improvement following the difficulties caused by Covid-19 in 2020.

Organic order intake was up 25% compared to the same period last year. The company said order progress was strongest in geographies that were hit the hardest last year, with North America up 41%, the Rest of Europe up 34%, the UK 26% higher, China/Hong Kong up 2% and the Rest of the World 8% higher.

"As the group emerges from the worst of the pandemic, it is still faced by many challenges; whilst traveling restrictions and university closures are progressively alleviated, capital expenditure freezes are still affecting some of our operations and supply chain issues, which were benign in 2020, are now generating much unproductive management effort," it said.

"Nevertheless, the company is consolidating its recovery: organic order intake remains positive and for the eight months to the end of August was 23% up on 2020, when the total order book stood at 20.1 weeks.

"Our financial position is robust and the board has confidence that the performance for the year as a whole will be ahead of consensus expectations."

At 1015 BST, the shares were up 7.1% at 7,500p.