LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Spirax-Sarco left its full year forecasts unchanged on Wednesday even as it reported that interim sales growth surpassed expectations, indicating that this would be offset by weakened industrial production growth forecasts for the second half of the year.
The steam management systems manufacturer said profit before tax for the six month period ended 30 June came in at £108.1m, 1.0% higher than for the same period last year, as revenue climbed by 8.0% to £591.2m.

Revenues were propelled higher by 13.0% sales growth from the Watson-Marlow pump manufacturing business and 15.0% growth from the Chromalox thermal technology company, though Spirax warned of profitability deterioration at the latter as adjusted operating profit fell by 37.0% and margins slipped from 14.7% to 9.7%.

The company also pointed to industrial production growth rates, which were forecast to slow from 3.1% in 2018 to 1.6% across the whole of the current year as the reason why it declined to raise its full-year results estimates.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100-listed company declared an interim dividend of 32.0p per share, up 10% on-year.

"While the strong performance in the first half of this year was ahead of our expectations, we believe that second half trading conditions will be below our earlier estimates. Therefore, overall, our full year expectations remain unchanged. Assuming no significant deterioration in trading conditions, the board remains confident that the group will continue to make progress in 2019," said the company.

Spirax-Sarco's shares were down 3.48% at 8,310.00p at 0808 BST.

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