Press Releases

02 Mar 2010

Preliminary Results 2009

HIGHLIGHTS

• Revenue of £1,961m (24% lower than 2008 on an underlying basis) showing strongly improving trend with H2 underlying revenue 13% higher than H1

• Cost reduction programme successfully completed – annualised savings of over £65m.

• Trading profit of £111.7m, of which 85% (£95.2m) was earned in H2

• Return on sales margin recovered to 9.2% in H2 (Ceramics H2 10.1%; Electronics H2 11.3%), versus 1.8% in H1

• Pre-tax exceptional charges of £96.6m as expected, related primarily to restructuring

• Free cash flow of £73m in H2, significantly exceeding expectations (full year 2009: £157m)

• Net debt reduced by £360m to £371m at year end, through rights issue in March 2009 and strong actions to reduce working capital (reduced by £153m) and conserve cash

• Improvements in steel and electronics end-markets have continued so far into 2010

View full press release (PDF)

« Back

Search