TT Electronics Posts Profit But Underlying Performance Weaker

LONDON (Alliance News) - TT Electronics PLC on Thursday recorded a pretax profit in 2015, but said its underlying performance was hit by a reduction in demand for resistors products and the absence of high-margin one-off orders.

The engineered electronics provider said its pretax profit for the year ended December 31 was GBP16.3 million, compared to a GBP5.9 million loss in 2014 when the group booked GBP22.2 million in restructuring costs, compared to GBP2.9 million in 2015.

Underlying operating profit, which strips out exceptional items, impairments and acquisition-related costs, however, fell to GBP21.7 million from GBP29.2 million a year earlier, primarily due to higher research and development costs, and one-off orders in its industrial sensing and control and advanced components that had taken place in 2014 no repeating.

Revenue in the year fell 3.0% to GBP509.9 million from GBP524.3 million, down 3.0% on an organic basis. TT said its order book remains sound, although recent weakness in its shorter cycle industrial markets resulted in the order book for the coming year being slightly lower than at the same time last year.

Net debt at the end of the year was GBP56.1 million, up from GBP14.3 million, largely down to the acquisition of electronics manufacturer Aero Stanrew Ltd in December.

The company said it will pay a final dividend of 3.8 pence per share, which will take its full year dividend to 5.5p, in line with 2014.

"Although we recognise that we are facing a tougher macro-economic environment, the combination of our self-help actions and the contribution from Aero Stanrew mean that we are on track to make progress in 2016. We remain confident in our ability to return the business to sustainable profitable growth in the medium term," said Chief Executive Richard Tyson.

Shares in TT were up 2.7% at 157.16p on Thursday morning.

By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland

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