(Alliance News) - Morgan Advanced Materials PLC on Tuesday reported a decline in profit, as it grappled with "weaker market conditions" and a cybersecurity incident in 2023.
The Windsor, England-based carbon and ceramic metals manufacturer said pretax profit slumped 41% to GBP77.8 million in 2023 from GBP131.6 million in 2022. Revenue was largely unchanged at GBP1.11 billion.
Operating costs increased 6.3% to GBP1.02 billion from GBP960.1 million. It had suffered a GBP14.7 million hit in relation to a cybersecurity incident suffered at the start of last year.
The FTSE 250 listing last year said unauthorised activity was detected on its network. Morgan at the time said it had taken measures within its IT infrastructure to ensure that the incident was contained, and that "actions are being taken to remediate and restore systems".
Morgan Advanced declared a final dividend of 6.7 pence per share, unmoved from a year prior. Its total dividend for the year was unchanged at 12p per share. The board has also declared its commitment to growing the ordinary dividend "as the economic environment and the group's earnings improve."
Chief Executive Pete Raby said: "Our product differentiation and successful business model have enabled us to deliver solid revenue growth in both our core and faster growing markets, despite the impact of the cybersecurity incident in the first half and weaker market conditions in the second. We have substantially completed our recovery from the cybersecurity incident, with our profitability and cash performance in line with our financial framework in the second half."
Morgan said it expects 2024 constant currency revenue growth in line with its "financial framework", which targets growth of 4% to 7%.
The company has said: "Our underlying outlook for 2024 performance is unchanged, with a slight weighting to our second half as additional capacity comes online, and a foreign exchange headwind anticipated."
A restructuring plan which commenced in the latter half of 2023 is expected to deliver GBP10.0 million of annualised savings by 2025, with an expected implementation cost of around GBP20.0 million. It said GBP18 million of this are cash costs expected to be incurred over 2023 to 2025.
Shares in Morgan Advanced Materials fell by 0.9% to 266.50 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.
By Elijah Dale, Alliance News reporter
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Morgan Advanced Materials (MGAM)