LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) - Johnson Matthey, theworld's largest autocatalysts maker, said on Thursday that itexpects its performance to improve in the next financial year asit posted a small increase in annual profit, helped by highersales of catalysts in Europe.
The UK-based specialty chemicals company reported underlyingpre-tax profit of 440.1 million pounds ($674.6 million) for theyear to the end of March, up from 427.3 million pounds theprevious year, helped by stricter EU regulation on vehicleemissions which boosted sales of its catalysts.
That compares with a company-provided analysts' consensusof£437.3 million pounds.
($1 = 0.6524 pounds) (Reporting by Silvia Antonioli; Editing by Pravin Char)