These robust figures from industrial components specialist Spectris contained few surprises after last month's bullish trading update. Overall, rapid Asian growth, strong mining sector demand and a recovery among car makers helped drive impressive sales growth during 2011.
Asia Pacific sales grew 17 per cent year on year, driven by China, and Asia now generates 33 per cent of group sales. In fact, rapacious Chinese demand drove a strong materials analysis division performance, which serves the metals, minerals and mining sectors – like-for-like sales there rose 21 per cent to £337.5m, with divisional profits up 52 per cent to £60.9m. Meanwhile, the test and measurement division benefited from increasing research spend on electric vehicles at the car manufacturers – like-for-like sales there rose 16 per cent to £346.9m, with profits up 56 per cent to £54.7m. And the industrial controls division, to which Omega Engineering was added last September, saw like-for-like sales up 18 per cent to £112.9m, with profits up 30 per cent to £22.1m – although the Omega deal did increase net debt by £270m to £356.2m.
Broker Numis Securities expects adjusted pre-tax profit of £228.2m for 2012, giving EPS of 144.4p (from £191.6m and 124.1p in 2011).
SPECTRIS (SXS) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 1,699p | MARKET VALUE: | £1.98bn | |
| TOUCH: | 1,697-1,700p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 1,723p | LOW: 1,029p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2% | PE RATIO: | 16 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 519p* | NET DEBT: | 59% | |
| Year to 31 Dec | Turnover (£bn) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 0.67 | 118 | 70.9 | 21.0 |
| 2008 | 0.79 | 106 | 70.3 | 23.4 |
| 2009 | 0.79 | 54.2 | 36.9 | 24.3 |
| 2010 | 0.90 | 120 | 83.1 | 28.0 |
| 2011 | 1.11 | 166 | 109.0 | 33.6 |
| % change | +23 | +38 | +31 | +20 |
Ex-div: 30 May Payment: 26 Jun *Includes intangible assets of £750m, or 645p a share | ||||
