North tech firm Filtronic has seen its shares jump after posting rising half-year revenues and profits.
The telecoms manufacturer, which has bases in Sedgefield, County Durham, Yeadon in Leeds and Maryland, USA, designs and manufactures products for the aerospace, defence, telecoms infrastructure and critical communications markets.
The firm saw revenues for the six months ended November 30, 2021, rise from £7.1m to £8m, while operating profit also jumped from £100,000 to £700,000.
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Adjusted Ebitda rose from £600,000 to £1.1m and the overall loss recorded in the comparable period was converted to profit of £700,000.
Shares had risen by 11% to 13.04p by lunchtime following the announcement.
Highlights for the period included a contract win from a leading RF test equipment company in the US valued at £600,000, for the pilot phase of the development supplying RF front-end modules for next generation over-the-air 5G test equipment.
It also continued to expand its indirect sales channels in the US, with Alpha Sales Group signing up in the Southeast territory to expand coverage of its sales reach in North America.
During the period it also appointed former McLaren Group boss Jonathan Neale as non-executive chairman, following the retirement of Reg Gott.
Mr Neale was previously chief operating officer of McLaren Group and before that he was the CEO of McLaren Racing F1 and managing director of Hawk Military Aircraft at BAE Systems in the UK.
He said: “We are confident we will achieve a third consecutive year of Ebitda growth despite the headwinds of supply chain disruption from global semiconductor shortages.
“Coupled with a healthy cash position, this provides a robust platform to further develop the business and continue investing in revenue growth initiatives and the technology roadmap.
“The board and management team are highly motivated to build on this and execute the strategic plan with a desire and focus to drive and deliver shareholder value.
“Recent investments in product development and operational capability align with the UK Government’s ambition for sovereign capability within the core markets we serve, as well as emerging markets such as Low Earth Orbit Space.
“This positions us well to capitalise on these opportunities and we are now starting to see the flow down into the supply chain and our opportunity pipeline.
“To this end, we are confident we can achieve our key strategic objective of broadening the customer base to add to our recent contract win with a leading 5G over-the-air equipment provider.
“Whilst the previous two years impeded customer engagement, the measures taken to augment our channels to market, along with investment into more sophisticated selling tools, has enabled the business to keep moving forward.
“Combined with travel restrictions easing and key marketing activities such as trade exhibitions reopening, we feel positive about the prospects of the business and our ability to continue to deliver growth.”
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