Northbridge seeing growth in most sectors

Northbridge Industrial Services has got off to a good start to 2011 with the recent acquisition, Tasman Oil Tools, performing well.Consolidated group revenue in 2010 surged to £19.3m from £12.7m the year before while pre-tax profits jumped to £3.7m from £2.2m. Tasman contributed £3.7m to sales.The group, which leases and sells industrial equipment, said that, excluding Tasman, rental revenue grew by 20% to £9.2m from £7.7m in 2009 and sales of the lower margin manufactured units grew by 28% to £6.4m from £5.0m the year before.The final dividend has been hiked by 13% to 3.05p from 2.7p a year earlier, taking the total pay-out for the year up to 4.6p, versus 4.1p in 2009."The global economic environment showed some signs of improvement in 2010 and despite recent events in the Middle East and Japan, we are pleased to note that orders and enquiries for the sales of manufactured units remain strong in all our traditional markets and demand for our rental services continues to grow," the company said."2011 has started well and our main customer base of power generation and the oil & gas sectors are seeing growth in most markets," the company statement added.---jh