LONDON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Catalysts maker Johnson Matthey posted on Thursday a small increase in half-yearprofits thanks to strong autocatalysts sales and lifted itsprofit forecast for the year.
The world's largest autocatalyst maker reported anunderlying pretax profit of 216.4 million pounds ($338.6million) for the half year to the end of September, up 2 percentfrom the same period last year, helped by stricter EU regulationon vehicle emission which boosted sales of its catalysts.
That compared with company-provided analyst forecasts ofbetween 194.1 million and 220.1 million pounds.
The company, which also refines and recycles platinum groupmetals, said it expected the group's performance in the currentfinancial year would be slightly ahead of last year.
In June, it had said it expected flat profits due to thenegative impact of a stronger pound and the end of buying dealwith platinum producer Anglo American Platinum.
(1 US dollar = 0.6391 British pound) (Reporting by Silvia Antonioli; Editing by Mark Potter)