Electrical and engineering products supplier Elektron has reaped the benefits of its restructuring and a large increase in sales and marketing investment in the six months to July 2010. Pre-exceptional profit jumped from £170,000 to £2.46m on revenues 46% higher at £20.6m. The main improvement came in the components business which is increasing its sales in the Americas and Asia. Elektron is paying its first interim dividend for 10 years. At 0.25p a share, it is the same as the interim announced 10 years ago - although it was called Bulgin then. Last year's final dividend was 0.5p a share. Net debt was £1.78m at the end of July 2010. Just after the year end £334,000 was raised at 24p a share. At the end of the trading period Elektron launched a 90p a share mandatory bid for instrumentation supplier Hartest, which valued it at £8.2m. The successful bid was closed earlier this week. There was an exceptional charge of £354,000 relating to the Hartest bid. Hartest's annualised revenues are around half of Elektron's current run rate and its margins are lower. Brokerlink forecasts revenues of £49m in the year to January 2011, rising to £67m the following year with a full contribution from Hartest. A full year profit of £4.9m is forecast, followed by £6.7m profit next year.