Acal 2018 interim results
Highlights
Strong growth in sales, orders, profitability and earnings
o Sales up 21% (+15% CER) on orders up 22% (+15% CER)
o Underlying operating profit up 34% (+23% CER)
o Underlying earnings per share up 24%
o Interim dividend increased by 8%
Wide spread organic growth across both divisions
o Group organic sales up 9%; orders up 10% in both divisions
o D&M organic sales up 11% - now 57% of Group sales (H1 2016/17: 52%)
o Custom Supply (previously known as Custom Distribution) organic sales up 7%
Good progress on key strategic and performance targets
o Underlying operating margin increased to 6.2% (H1 2016/17: 5.6 %)
o Cross selling of £4.2m, more than doubled from last year (H1 2016/17: £1.9m)
o ROCE of 14.5%, up 2.8ppts on last year (H1 2016/17: 11.7%)
o Operating cash flow at 95% of underlying operating profit in the last 12 months
