Environmental group heads for financial storm

Environmental group heads for financial storm

Environmental technology and safety group Halma may be headed for a dangerous financial storm as it reveals annual results on Tuesday.

The Amersham-based company said it expects its results for the current financial year to be ‘marginally below last year’s level’.

According to Halma, the US market will cause the weaker results, as business in the rest of the world remains stable.

FD Kevin Thompson has been looking nervously to the US where weak conditions in the second half of the year have impacted on the performance of its resistors and elevator electronics business.

Thompson joined the group in 1987 as group financial controller and in 1997 became group finance director.

He will be looking intently at the performance of the company’s six business groups including water leak detection and UV treatment, elevator electronics and bursting discs and sequential locking for process safety.

In December, as the company announced its interim results, Halma’s chief executive admitted the company was ‘not fully insulated from economic conditions.’

He said: ‘The group’s performance and pattern of trading for the first five months of the year have remained good. Sales increases in the UK and Europe have compensated for some reduction in our US markets.’

The UK subsidiary has benefited from a contract to supply water purification technology to water company Severn Trent.

But he added: ‘With around one third of group sales and profits emanating from the US, it was inevitable the events there would impede the delivery of certain orders and have some impact on our half-year figures, which are now likely to be at a similar level to those reported last year.’

But the company remains confident it will maintain its growth and good performance record relative to its peers.

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