IQE Share News (IQE)

Advanced wafer products maker IQE saw record revenues in the second half of 2009 as its customers started restorign stock levels.Revenue for the year as a whole was down to £52.65m from £60.49m, with £31.23m of the 2009 total coming in the second half, up from £30.31m in the second half of 2010.Chief executive officer Dr. Drew Nelson told Sharecast that the momentum has been maintained into the current year. 'We're very pleased with our performance to date, although the business is a little bit seasonal, what with things like the Chinese New Year having an effect,' Dr. Nelson said. Profit before tax was £2.1m, compared to a loss of £1.4m in 2008 when the company took a £3.9m hit from exceptional charges.Group finance director Phil Rasmussen said the company is benefiting from the swift and decisive action it took at the tail-end of 2008 when it saw the slide in demand coming.'We acted in pretty good time in Q4 [2008] and we remained EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation] positive throughout the recession, which is pretty phenomenal for such a highly geared company,' Rasmussen asserted. 'We looked at our supply chain for any weaknesses and many of our customers did the same, and they got a little nervous about the state of some of our competitors. We are the 800lb gorilla in the epiwafer market, and we think customers saw us as a haven during the recession,' Rasmussen claimed. Though the company made cutbacks, it stopped short of cutting to the bone, which meant it had the resources and expertise to benefit from the rebound in the second half of 2009, Rasmussen said.Net debt at the end of the year had been reduced to £14.9m from £18.1m, partly as a result of strong cash conversion but also as a result of a return to more normal capital expenditure (capex) level after the bulge in capex in 2008 caused by the transfer of production facilities to a new factory in Singapore.