- Full-year earnings dragged lower by tough construction market
- Encouraged by current level of prospects across the business
- Strong US performance, dividend up 10%,

A challenging year for construction weighed on full-year earnings at safety systems specialist Latchways but despite the tough conditions, it underlined its confidence in future trading with a 10% hike in its dividend payment.

Pre-tax profit fell to £6.8m for the year ended march 31st from £10.9m a year earlier. Revenue for the period fell to £38.5m from £42.4m before. Basic earnings per share declined to 50.68p from 70.32p before.

Chairman Paul Hearson said: "Despite the challenging conditions in our core markets that we talked of earlier in the year, we are encouraged by the current level of prospects across the business.

"Underlying order intake in the first two months of the year has been in line with the same period last year and we will make further progress as our new sales resources and North American operation start to contribute."

Latchways said it enjoyed a strong performance in North America with new sales and the creation of a distribution facility. US operations, based in Houston Texas, are focused on developing new revenue streams as well as supporting the business of existing customers, the group explained.

It added the improving state of the UK and some European economies provides it with confidence for the medium term recovery of the commercial construction market.

The group has recommended a 10% increase in its final dividend to 27.50p per share, giving a total dividend of 39.60p per share for the year, up from 36.00p per share.

Net cash was little changed at £10.3m compared to £10.5m in 2013 despite over £3m spent on new the new US facility.


CJ

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