Financial highlights
Revenue up 3% to £49.0m (2013: £47.4m)
Operating profit up 89% to £5.1m (2013: £2.7m)
Profit before tax doubled to £5.1m (2013: £2.5m)
Diluted earnings per share up 117% to 1.3p (2013: 0.6p)
Net cash of £29.8m (31 October 2013: net debt £6.0m; 30 April 2014: net cash £6.1m)
Interim dividend up 10% at 0.63p per share (2013: 0.575p per share)
Statutory results:
Revenue from continuing operations of £49.0m (2013: £47.4m)
Operating profit from continuing operations of £1.0m (2013: loss of £0.7m), after:
- Share-based payments charge of £0.3m (2013: £0.6m)
- amortisation of acquired intangible assets of £2.4m (2013: £2.4m)
- acquisition costs of £1.4m (2013: £0.4m)
Profit from continuing operations before tax of £1.0m (2013: loss of £0.9m)
Profit for the period of £32.5m (2013: £0.6m)
- includes profit from disposed Travel business of £32.0m (2013: £1.9m)
Basic earnings per share from continuing operations 0.2p (2013: loss per share of 0.5p); Diluted earnings per share 0.1p (2013: loss per share 0.5p)
Operating highlights:
First period of results as a specialist wireless business
- £45m disposal of Travel completed on 29 May 2014
Handset Testing: revenue and profit growth achieved despite a challenging market backdrop
- launch of Anite 9000 v2.5 platform
Network Testing: progressive improvement after relatively slow start to year
- $30m acquisition of Xceed completed on 2 October 2014
Group order intake down 5% to £49.4m (2013: £51.8m)
- closing order book of £34.7m (31 October 2013: £32.9m; 30 April 2014: £32.5m)
- Handset Testing product orders up 20%
Christopher Humphrey, Chief Executive, said:
"After a relatively slow start to the year, we finished the period with encouraging momentum building in both businesses. Specific sales opportunities are developing well and give us confidence for the year as a whole as we enter this seasonally important trading period."
