Laird full year profit up, confident on 2016

For the year to the end of December, underlying pre-tax profit rose 16% to £73.1m on revenue of £630.4m, up 12% despite more challenging markets in the fourth quarter.

Profit before tax from continuing operations, however, slid to £15.4m from £48.1m in 2014, reflecting an exceptional charge to the P&L of £45m, offset by the increase in underlying profit before tax of £9.9m.

Laird said it saw a 5% organic increase in constant currency revenue and a 7% increase in organic revenue in US dollars.

In terms of the divisions, Wireless Systems saw 12% organic revenue growth at constant currency, driven by automotive/M2M applications.

Performance Materials, meanwhile, saw 1% growth, reflecting some softer markets in the fourth quarter.

The board recommended a final dividend of 8.6p per share from 8.2p in 2014, taking the full dividend for the year to 13p from 12.5 the previous year.

Chief executive David Lockwood said: “"This has been another year of good growth in both revenue and underlying profits, with softer conditions in some markets being off-set by success in others.

“This demonstrates that our strategy of re-balancing our business through the diversification of customers and markets, has delivered a more robust and sustain.”

Lockwood said the company was entering 2016 confident in its outlook for further growth, underpinned by an increasingly well diversified mix of technologies, customers and end-markets.

At 0809 GMT, Laird shares were up 1.5% to 348.70p.