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(Alliance News) - Gooch & Housego PLC on Tuesday increased its annual dividend, even as profit dropped in a difficult trading environment.
For the financial year to the end of September, pretax profit dropped 41% to GBP6.0 million from GBP10.1 million the year before.
This was due to a charge of GBP6.3 million for the impairment of goodwill of GBP2.7 million, relating to the Gould Fiber Optic business.
Gooch & Housego said the performance of the US defence components maker since its acquisition for an initial USD13 million in September 2018 was not sufficient to trigger the payment of the contingent consideration of USD3.4 million.
There also were higher restructuring costs of GBP1.4 million, and GBP3.7 million from the amortisation of acquired intangible assets.
On an adjusted basis, pretax profit still fell by 20% to GBP15.0 million from GBP18.8 million, reflecting lower market demand for higher margin critical components for industrial lasers.
However, the optical components and systems provider reported a 3.4% rise in revenue to GBP129.1 million from GBP124.9 million the prior year, as growth in the Life Sciences and A&D segments more than offset a decline in the Industrial division.
Gooch & Housego declared a final dividend of 7.2 pence per share, bringing the total payout to 11.5p, up 1.8% to 11.3p the year before.
The group's order book as at September 30 was GBP94.4 million, down 1.4% from the year before, due to high demand for fibre optics, but lower demand for industrials lasers.
"Trading reflected a challenging macro-economic environment for industrial lasers and in contrast record demand for fibre optics, hi-reliability fibre couplers used in undersea cables and life science products. We believe that ultimately technological innovation in industrial laser end market applications and new laser based manufacturing techniques will drive improved demand for our industrial laser products," said Chief Executive Officer Mark Webster.
Shares in Gooch & Housego - which is headquartered in Ilminster - were down 3.0% at 1,215.00 pence on Tuesday in London.
By Dayo Laniyan; dayolaniyan@alliancenews.com
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