Year End Trading Update

RNS Number : 8269U

Carclo plc

12 April 2016

 

12 April 2016

Carclo plc

("Carclo" or the "Group")

Year End Trading Update

The Board is pleased to announce that the Group has traded in line with its expectations for the financial year ended 31 March 2016.

Our Technical Plastics division has, as expected, benefited from a much stronger second half trading performance compared to the first half of the financial year. Our US business has performed particularly well, reflecting the new business wins achieved and the recent capacity expansion at its Latrobe, Pennsylvania facility.  Demand has also been strong in our UK business.  Our new facility in Taicang, China is now fully operational and we have validated and commenced supply to our global medical device customer; our forward pipeline for our Taicang facility looks very encouraging. We are currently expanding capacity in both our Bangalore, India and our Tucson, Arizona facilities and, as expected, we anticipate bringing this capacity on stream mid-way through the new financial year.

The LED Technologies division has delivered a good second half performance with our Wipac super car lighting business continuing to perform very well.   Design, development and tooling activity has been impressive this year; we have won a number of new programmes and successfully transitioned a number of development programmes through to production including the all new head lamps and tail lamps for the Aston Martin DB11 which was recently launched at the Geneva Motor Show.  Our future pipeline remains strong and key customer relationships are excellent. The LED Optics business has performed well with a stronger second half aided by the launch of a range of new optics clusters.

The Precision Engineering businesses have had a better second half, benefiting from the stronger order book seen over recent months.

Carclo Diagnostics Solutions' ("CDS") technical progress has continued to be consistent with our published roadmap and the UK focussed healthcare practitioner market research exercise has completed.  In order to determine the optimal way to develop this opportunity for shareholders, we commenced discussions with potential commercial partners and appointed advisors to engage with more strategic collaborators. The Board believes that the feedback from these will be pivotal in concluding the appropriate strategy for the business.

Group debt at 31 March 2016 was in line with the Board's expectations.  Subsequent to the March 2015 pension triennial valuation, we have agreed a new recovery plan with the pension trustees which results in a broadly similar level of annual payment to the previous agreement.

The Board is pleased with the Group's encouraging performance in the year just ended.  The strong growth prospects in both Technical Plastics and LED Technologies provide the board with confidence in its expectations for the new financial year.

Carclo will announce its preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2016 on 7 June 2016.

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Enquiries:

Carclo plc		01924 268040
Chris Malley, Chief Executive
Robert Brooksbank, Finance Director
Peel Hunt LLP		0207 418 8900
Justin Jones
Jock Maxwell Macdonald
Mike Bell
Weber Shandwick Nick Oborne Tom Jenkins		020 7067 0000

Note to Editors

Carclo plc is a public company whose shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

Carclo's strategy is to develop and expand its key manufacturing assets where there remain significant further opportunities to drive value. To enhance profit margins the group has been investing in new technologies.

Approximately three fifths of revenues are currently derived from the supply of fine tolerance, injection moulded plastic components, mainly for medical products. The balance of revenue is derived mainly from the design and supply of specialised injection moulded LED based lighting systems to the low volume premium automotive industry.

 

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