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Article: Oxford Instruments moves to cut costs.
- Article from:
- Investors Chronicle - magazine and web content
- Article date:
- June 9, 2009
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Byline: Anthony Lugg
RESULTS: An ambitious growth plan has been derailed by the downturn
Oxford Instruments is well into its five-year plan, announced in 2006, to double the size of the business and push margins up by 10 percentage points, to around 13 per cent. This could well have been derailed by the severity of the recession that started to bite last year, but the company moved swiftly to cut costs.
As a result of restructuring charges, the headline numbers look pretty dire, but, in fact, underlying pre-tax profits rose by 17 per cent to GBP11.1m and earnings per share increased by 26 per cent to 14.8p. Trading margins edged up to 6.3 per ...