The share price of global engineering group GKN (LSE: GKN) is currently up almost 6% following the release of the company’s half-year results to 30 June 2013.
Operating profit rose 10% to £320m, with pre-tax profit up 5% at £278m, on sales that had increased 12%, up to £3,869m from £3,459m last year. Earnings per share were 3% lower, but this was anticipated, due to a higher tax rate, and the company is increasing its interim dividend by 8% to 2.6p per share.
Commenting on the results, Nigel Stein, GKN’s chief executive, said:
“GKN has continued to make good progress against our strategy to grow a market-leading global engineering business. Although some of our end markets remained challenging, we continued to outperform and are reporting good underlying financial results with further benefit from last year’s acquisition, GKN Aerospace Engine Systems (formerly Volvo Aero), which is performing well.
” The first half met our expectations and, with planned restructuring costs now behind us, we expect a stronger second half performance and to deliver good progress in 2013.“
GKN’s share price stands at 346p at the time of writing, up 50% so far in 2012 and 63% on this time last year. GKN’s shares should yield a dividend of around 2.4% over the full year, forecast to rise to close to 2.7% in 2014.
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> Jon doesn’t own shares in GKN.
