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(Alliance News) - Timber products company James Latham PLC on Thursday reported a "good" past financial year, with operations going well since then.
For the year to March 31, James Latham's revenue rose 9.4% to GBP214.9 million, with volumes rising 0.9%. Most revenue growth came from direct business, the company said.
Pretax profit rose marginally, by 0.7%, to GBP15.3 million, James Latham added.
It will be paying a final dividend of 12.9 pence a share, up 6.6% from 12.1p the year before. This takes the year's total return to 17.9p, up 7.8% from 16.6p.
Since the end of March, sales per working day were 4.5% higher in April and May year-on-year, excluding the contribution from EUR2.6 million purchase Abbey Wood.
"The acquisition and integration of Abbey Woods has gone very well, and we now have a great platform to develop sales in Ireland. We continue to see growth in sales of added value timber and panel products, although volume growth in our core products is proving more challenging," said James Latham.
"Prices on some of our commodity panels are showing signs of weakness, partly due to over stocking within our industry. I am pleased to report there is a good level of activity for the majority of both our timber and panel customers. Despite the strong start to the year, there is still uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook, but we remain confident we are in a strong position to continue to grow the business."
Shares were 3.6% higher on Thursday morning at a price of 864.65p apiece.