Bellwether industry ‘resilient but not immune’
1 min read
The steam engineering specialist Spirax Sarco has said that it expected to be resilient but not immune to a slowing world economy. The company believed that the widespread use of steam across the global engineering industry meant that its markets tended to reflect general economic conditions and industrial production.
Group chief executive Mark Vernon went on to say: "We are increasingly alert to the impact on these from uncertainty relating to the financial markets and the parlous state of government finances in many countries. If the growth rate of the world economy slows, we expect to be resilient but not immune."
Reporting on its half year progress, Spirax Sarco said it continued to aggressively progress the implementation of its global manufacturing strategy. On manufacturing operations, it reported: "Our new, significantly larger, plant in China completed its first full year of operation and output is steadily rising with the addition of new equipment and localisation of more production. In June, we completed the extensive physical moves in the Cheltenham manufacturing site consolidation and the reorganisation of our French factory, and expect to see the progressive cost savings as the new manufacturing processes are bedded down."
In the first six months of the year, sales at £307.7 million were ahead 11%, while reported pre-tax profits dipped 1% to £60.8 million.
