Acal (LON:ACL) (ACL, 247p, £70.19m) Interims to September have seen revenues rise to £127.3m (£71.5m), primarily boosted by the BFI Optilas acquisition, though like for like the group achieved a very respectable 25% increase. Gross profits of £36m (£19.6m), with gross margins of 28.3% (27.4%) were accompanied by higher selling and distribution of £19.3m (£12.1), though that represented a reduction as a percentage of sales, underlying admin costs rose to £13.5m (£9.1m) , again a reduction as a percentage of sales. Underlying the group made £2.5m PBT against a loss before tax of £2.3m in the comparable period last year. Underlying EPS was 7p (loss 8.7p). The underlying taxation rate is now below 24% as the group makes uses of established tax losses as regions become profitable. The group has declared a held interim DPS at 2.33p.  The integration of BFI Optilas is on track to deliver annualised synergies of at least £4.4m by the end of the year (£2.3m in the first half) with the group running on a single IT system since the start of October.  The Medical division saw revenues rise to £3.6m (£2.9m) with op profits up to £0.5m (£0.3m) with over 50% of revenues arising from the supplies of its equipment (such as high quality radiology, bone densitometry and mammography equipment) to the NHS which as significant H2 weighting to its ordering patterns.  The Supply Chain division saw revenues declined to £27.2m (£29.2m) with op profits down to £0.5m (£0.6m) though comparisons are clouded by the termination of a non core contract in March 2010 which hid an underlying growth in revenues of £1.3m or up 5%. Post the period end the group sold the ATM Parts business that lost £0.2m in H1. The electronics division saw particular strength in Speciality Components, RF components and in Power – all of which grew more than 40%. Similarly all European countries grew with Germany a particular feature (up 50%). As important is the maintenance of the book to bill at 1.12 – the same as H2 last year. With the H2 continuing the growth in Electronics with a stable outlook for the rest of the divisions (though a seasonally better performance is still expected) the group appears well set to exceed existing forecasts of £3.5m with 7.9p EPS and a held 7p DPS. One does wonder how long the…

Unlock the rest of this article with a 14 day trial

Unlock with Email
Unlock with Google

Already have an account?
Login here