After a poor start, Gooch & Housego's (GHH) managed an encouraging full-year performance. Significantly, the net debt pile has almost disappeared and there were no further deferred acquisition-related payments - these reached £2.06m last year.
IC TIP:
Hold
at
450p
Gooch's trading improved steadily following a tough first quarter and adjusted pre-tax profit fell 24 per cent year-on-year at £8.2m - rather better than with the 40 per cent profit slide reported at the half-year stage. In particular, performance suffered from lower sales of higher margin Q-switches - these control lasers that are used to make sophisticated consumer goods. In fact, Q-switch sales fell from 21 per cent of total turnover to 14 per cent.