Reviewing Roxboro Group Plc’s fiscal 1996 performance, group chief executive Harry Tee declared it a disappointing year, having experienced difficult trading conditions in the electronic components market, with pre-tax profits dropping 14% to 14m pounds, on revenue up 16% to 108m pounds. The firm did warn last November that it expected profits for the year to be below market expectations (CI No 3,039). However, its shares yesterday were trading up 13.5 pence at 211 pence, suggesting that the market is reassured that it has recovered from the scare in January (CI No 3,086), when TT Group Plc sold on the 8.5% stake it bought in Roxboro last November (CI No 3,048), just days after the warning. The Newmarket, UK specialist components, instrumentation and sensor manufacturer also quoted start-up costs for the transport product group of its Dialight unit, at 1.3m pounds (CI No 3,001), and restructuring of its components division at 500,000 pounds, as contributors to the poor performance, amounting to a 36% decline in profitability. However, Roxboro is heartened by a raft of contract wins. The components arm brought in 46% of total revenue at 50m pounds, down from nearly 50% last time and boasted a number of new orders, 7.3m pounds of which went to Dialight’s transport product group. The biggest of these was from the State of New Jersey’s Department of Transportation, to supply 12,000 light-emitting diode-based traffic signals. Dialight also diversified into the automotive market. Fellow components unit BLP, already in the automotive business, won further contracts with Land Rover for its Powerpulse component and launched a version for the North American market. It also won a deal with Sega Enterprises Ltd to supply filter products for Sega audio- visual consoles. The sensors business contributed 30% of sales at 32m pounds, up from 25% last year and won deals with Rolls Royce Plc to supply parts for Tornado aircraft, as well as with General Electric Co’s Aero Engines division in the US. The sensors arm bought US pressure sensor vendor Pressure Systems Inc in January which has also secured deals with Rolls Royce and launched a new pressure sensor. The instrumentation division won a 2.5m pound contract with Electricite de France for remote data acquisition modules, and acquired Arun Technology Ltd, vendor of portable and desktop metal alloy analyzers, in September. The group proposes a final dividend of 4.4 pence, taking the total for the year to 6.6 pence, a 10% increase on last year’s 6.0p.
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