LONDON (ShareCast) - Densitron Technologies, which makes information display systems, sunk to a loss in the first half and cut its dividend in half.

Chairman Jan Holmstrom said the past 12 months had been a period of transition for the group after it extended its product and service range.

He admitted the results were “a little disappointing.”

But he added: “The second half of the year is traditionally the group's stronger half and with the orders that have already been booked in July and August and the expected continuation of this improvement we remain confident that the full year results for the business will exceed the results achieved for the full year in 2012.

Densitron made a loss of £0.23m in the six months to June 30th compared with a profit of £0.06m last time after revenues fell to £9.96m from £10.55m.

The dividend has been cut to 0.1p from 0.2p.


Henry Boot hiked its interim dividend payment after profits rose 34% to £7.4m in the first half of the year.

The company, which is involved in land, property, construction and plant hire, said the results were helped by a £15m sale of land to a housebuilder following its acquisition of the former Terry’s chocolate factory in York.

It has since secured planning approval for a range of uses for the 270,000 square-foot listed factory, office buildings and adjacent development land and is progressing initial interest from a range of prospective occupiers.

Henry Boot reported revenues jumped to £81.8m in the six months to June 30th from £43.3m and it has lifted its interim dividend by 8% to 1.95p.

The property company said it had added more than 550 acres in the period to its portfolio which now total 9,565 acres.

It said its construction arm had achieved its forecast order book for this year and was now starting to take commitments for 2014.

Chairman John Brown said: “We continue to trade in line with the board’s expectation for the year ended 31 December 2013.”

Net debt has increased to £38.8m from £21.9m at the end of 2012.


Sylvania Platinum swung to a full year profit thanks to the sale of its iron ore assets last year.

But the AIM-listed platinum group’s production fell to 44,255 ounces from 45,735 ounces after its operations, all of which are in South Africa, were disrupted by labour disputes and safety stoppages on host mines as well as power outages.

It said the immediate outlook for the platinum industry appeared “if anything, less certain than a year ago”.

Nonetheless, it expects group production for the coming year to rise to 51,000 ounces.

Sylvania said: "The final few months in FY2013 saw production from operations recover and it is encouraging that despite the issues that occurred during the year, the ounces from the Sylvania plants alone grew by 507 ounces year-on-year and operations remained profitable."

The company made a pre-tax profit of $5.4m in the year to June 30th compared with a loss of $2.5m in the previous year after it recognised a $9.9m profit on the sale of its iron ore asset Ironveld last year. There will not be a dividend payment.

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