Revenue improves at Portmeirion Group, but profits slide

4th Aug 2016 09:04

(ShareCast News) - Portmeirion Group announced its performance for the six months to 30 June on Thursday, with revenue of £28.5m up by 2% on the £27.9m a year ago.The AIM-traded company's profit before tax was down by 22% to £1.4m, from £1.8m, and its EBITDA slipped 8% to £2.1m from £2.3m.Earnings per share reduced 24% to 9.87p from 13.01p, but the board still declared an interim dividend increase of 15% to 7.00p per share.During the period, the Portmeirion Group completed a £17.5m acquisition of Wax Lyrical, the UK's largest manufacturer of home fragrances.It also received the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the category of international trade, which recognised its continuous growth in overseas sales and "overall outstanding achievement" in international trade over the last six years."This has been a challenging period for the group," said non-executive chairman Dick Steele."As we announced in July we were disappointed by the reduction in demand in some of our Asian markets and the consequent effects we expect this to have on our 2016 results."We strongly believe that this is a short term setback and we remain confident in our medium and long term prospects," Steele added.