Racal Electronics Plc issued its second profits warning within six months on Friday, telling investors that profits for the year would not meet expectations, although they would be above 40m pounds, with the perennially underachieving data communications equipment business yet again doing the damage, not only failing to meet its target to make a profit, but losing another 7m pounds. The shares slumped 33 pence to 244 pence or 12%. Racal blamed the loss on the delayed launch of its fast Frame Relay product, resulting in more research and development costs and lower anticipated revenues; the other main group businesses, managed network services and defence electronics, performed well, and had excellent prospects ahead.
