9 June 2010 – annual results
Annual results for the year to 31 March have come in better than expected even though sales and underlying pre-tax profits both fell by 4% to £37.7m and £3.9m respectively. Underlying earnings per share were down 6% at 3.12p and the total dividend for the year was maintained at 0.465p. These were very good results given the difficult market and net debt was reduced by 58% to £1.6m partially due to better control of stock. Sales growth is expected to resume in the current financial year and even a modest increase in profits to £4.0m for earnings per share of 3.2p leaves the shares languishing on a prospective p/e ratio of just 4.8x. The share are CHEAP.