LONDON (Alliance News) - Tube manipulation specialists Tricorn Group PLC Friday said first-half revenues for the group is expected to be around 15% higher than the year previous but pretax profit lower than anticipated, due to "prevailing conditions for its UK businesses.
In a pre close trading update, the pipe manufacturers said in the UK, revenues have remained "relatively soft" in both the energy and transportation divisions and are at similar levels to the second half of the last financial year.
While the market has shown signs of improvement, this has been later than anticipated and is now likely to be towards the end of the current financial year, the firm said.
Tricorn said its US business had also struggled with "modest" revenue, but this had been offset by increasing revenues in China.
Despite problems in the US, Tricorn remained optimistic as good progress had been made establishing a stable platform in the US from which to grow.
The company said it was encouraging to report that business from new customers with an annualised value of around USD4 million at full production volumes have already been secured.
However, as expected there had been reduction in existing business as customers follow through, at least in part, on commitments made to alternative suppliers at the time the business was in receivership.
Some business had started to return, as customer see investment being made in the North Carolina facility, Tricorn added.
By Anthony Tshibangu; anthonytshibangu@alliancenews.com; @AnthonyAllNews
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