24 March 2015 – final results

The company, which supplies advanced wafer products and services to the semiconductor industry, has announced its final results for 2014.  These revealed revenues of £112m, in line with expectations, and down from almost £127m in 2013 due to industry wide destocking, adverse currency movements and lower growth in demand.  However, the second half saw revenues of £60m, an increase of 15% on the first half, which is clearly encouraging.  Adjusted pre-tax profits increased by 25% to £16.2m and adjusted fully diluted earnings per share rose 21% to 2.42p as cost reductions helped profit margins to improve.  Strong cash flow allowed net debt to decline to £31.3m (2013: £34.4m).  Trading in the first three months of the current year has been in line with expectations and with adjusted pre-tax profit expected to increase to £17m for earnings per share of 2.6p the shares remain a BUY.