- Full-year earnings guidance maintained
- Order book supports analysts’ full-year profit estimates
- First-half profit declines on flat revenue due to change in product mix
Crawley-based Inspiration Healthcare (IHC:75p), a fully integrated medical technology company with a strong focus on the high-growth neonatal intensive care market, is maintaining full-year profit guidance and expects to make good a first-half profit shortfall.
Although first-half revenue edged down slightly to £20.5mn, gross margin declined from 52.5 to 45.1 per cent due to a shift away from higher-margin branded products and increased component costs, the impact of which was a reversal in cash profit from £3.6mn to £2.2mn. However, the order book remains strong – the group recently won a £0.6mn order from Japan, and large orders in Iraq (£1.3mn) and Egypt (£1.25mn) – supporting management’s view that it can hit Cenkos Securities’ full-year cash profit estimate of £6.9mn, up from £6.4mn the previous financial year.