Porvair profit drops as crisis hits demand

Porvair's annual profit fell as the filtration and environmental technology group suffered declining revenue due to supply constraints and falling orders during the Covid-19 crisis.

Pretax profit dropped 17% to £11.6m in the year to the end of December as revenue fell 7% to £135m. Adjusted pretax profit fell 15% to £12.6m.

Porvair increased its final dividend to 3.3p a share from 3.2p a year earlier taking the annual payout to 5p a share compared with 4.9p a year earlier.

Profit fell most sharply at the aerospace and industrial division, Porvair's biggest business by revenue, where adjusted operating profit dropped 26% to £6.3m. On the same basis, profit rose 2% at the laboratory business to £6.7m.

The company gave no financial guidance with trading difficult to predict and said the next few months could be difficult. Demand from aerospace customers may take longer to recover while others such as laboratories are rebounding strongly, Porvair said.

Ben Stocks, chief executive, said: Until the pandemic recedes near-term trading remains unpredictable and the Group continues to withhold earnings guidance. But the results for the year turned out to be better than initially feared in our contingency planning.

"The next few months may continue to be difficult, but beyond that we are increasingly optimistic. Investments made over the last few years will help margins and the new product development pipeline is strong for the near term."

Porvair shares fell 4.4% to 529.64p at 11:41 GMT.