US defense sales helped Towcester, UK-based Radstone Technology to stage a recovery and turn a net loss of 1.8m pounds into a profit of 148,000 pounds. With sales in North America increasing by 51% to 13.3m pounds, the company was able to hoist revenues 21 percent to 23.7m pounds. A change in US defense procurement policy two years ago hit the company badly and it has been forced to reorganize and cut product lead times. Eminent Technology, the new division which embraces its UK manufacturing operations, is hoping to broaden its focus from four companies in the defense/avionics field to other UK systems integrators while the surface mount sub-contract assembler, pushed up sales by 35% to 4.7m pounds. The VME business recorded shipments up 21% to 19.4m pounds and the company has had to work hard to adapt to greater demands from customers. A continuation of the recovery to ‘acceptable levels of profitability’ is anticipated this year and the shares rose 5 pence, or 10% to 56.5 pence.
