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
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