Sanderson Electronics Plc has failed to meet the ambitious target of a 15% annual growth in Earnings per share which it set itself last year. But the group has still turned in some strong results and there are hopes for a big second half. Interim figures for the six months to March 31 show net profits up 21.6% to 2.6m pounds on revenue that rose 8.0% to 32.6m pounds. The Sheffield, UK-based company supplies applications software and services for Unix, MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows based systems and employs 1,000 people from offices in the UK and Asia Pacific. The reduced growth rate in earnings stems from a slow down in the pace of acquisitions since last year. Operating profit from acquisitions fell from 5% of the group total in the year to September 1996, to just 1% in the last six months. In the past, the company has resorted to advertising in the Financial Times for potential acquisitions and Sanderson will be disappointed if a major buy isn’t made before the year end. The board are also hinting at better second half, powered by recent marketing efforts in Australia and Asia pacific. The consensus of opinion amongst analysts is a year end profit before tax of around 7.2m pounds. The company spends over 2m pounds a year promoting its name logo. Sanderson will pay a second interim dividend of 2.4 pence per share, giving a total of 4.6 pence so far, up 15% from last year.
