Raymarine records 26% rise in pre-tax profit |
|
|
Published
:
Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:05
|
LONDON: Marine electronics firm Raymarine Ltd recorded 15.9-million-pound pre-tax profit in the first half of the current fiscal, an increase of 26 per cent, after the company went public in
December 2004. The turnover too rose by 10.7 per cent to 74.4 million pounds, aided by launch of two new systems for mid and large-sized boats and increased demands for navigation and fish-finding equipment.
The company had announced in July that it intends to outsource manufacturing of all of its 400 products and reduce its 430 or so staff. The company's U.K. manufacturing operations will now be handed over to the Hungarian unit of electronics multinational Flextronics International from 2007. This will lead to some 250 job losses at its Portsmouth factory over the next 18 months, but a saving of 11 million pounds a year, the company said.
The company's chief executive Malcolm Miller said the company would consider five or six acquisitions in the next 12 months. The first interim results represent a "large step forward in [our] continuing success," he added.
Raymarine, which once provided its boating technology to Ellen MacArthur so that he could sail around the world, said its two new products will enable leisure-boat enthusiasts and fishermen to have radar, depth-sounder, global positioning, three-dimensional charts, aerial photographs and port services on one screen. The company's existing product range includes autopilot, GPS and fish-finding systems for vessels in the leisure boating market.
The company expects that its business will see substantial growth in eastern Europe and China. Miller said the company has been receiving more queries from countries such as Russia, Romania and Hungary. "As industries in these countries become privatised, it is creating wealth that is being spent and some of it is going into boating," he said.
The company's non-executive chairman Roger Thomas will be retiring at the end of September. Peter Ward, now non-executive director and chairman of the remuneration and nominations committee, is expected to assume the position of chairman then.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Print this Story
