Irish ceramics and crystal group Waterford Wedgwood has reported a 28% increase in profits for the first six months. However, the company said that it still needed to lift income at underperforming di…
Irish ceramics and crystal group Waterford Wedgwood has reported a 28% increase in profits for the first six months. However, the company said that it still needed to lift income at underperforming divisions, including some Midland (England) sites. Waterford Wedgewood, which has many businesses in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in the UK, also said it was looking for acquisitions to help its drive to double the group“s sales by the year 2000. Within the UK-based Wedgwood fine china and ceramics group, sales were up 6% but the Johnson Brothers business, which is about breaking even, saw sales fall 7%. Mr Redmond O“Donoghue, chief executive of the Waterford division, said the Wedgwood division had shed 55 jobs to cut costs in some areas during the half year to 30 June, but had also recruited 255 people elsewhere. Stuart Crystal, the glass crystal maker, based near Birmingham, UK, acquired after a bitter battle last year (see Glass Machinery Plants & Accessories Nos. 5-95 and 6-95), broke even after notching up a 14% sales increase but is facing a battle to get its margins up from zero to a target 12-14%. About I 1 million is being invested in Stuart Crystal this year in equipment designed to improve efficiency and the sales force has been amalgamated into Waterford“s with no job losses, Mr O“Donoghue said. The group made profits of I 9.5 million for the half year to 30 June, up from I 7.4 million for the same period last year. Sales were up 8% to I 163.2 million from I 150.9 million. Shareholders will get an interim dividend of 0.3p, up 20% from 0.25p, and earnings per share from 1.08p up 32% from 0.82p. The shares rose 0.5p to 79p. In Wedgwood, operating profits rose for the fourth consecutive year, up 13% to I 6.3 million on sales of I 101.7 million, up from I 104 million. In Waterford, profits were I 5.1 million, up from I 4.5 million, on sales of I 61.5 million, up from I 46.9 million.