(Alliance News) - Vesuvius PLC on Thursday reported reduced profit for 2024 but hiked its dividend as it made some share gains in "challenging market conditions".
The London-based molten metal flow engineering and technology said in 2024 pretax profit declined 23% to GBP138.6 million from GBP179.4 million in the previous year.
Revenue was down 5.7% to GBP1.82 billion from GBP1.93 billion in 2023.
The company said it delivered market share gains in its Flow Control and Foundry divisions, with "resilient pricing and cost reductions" which partially offset weak end markets in the Foundry division.
It declared a final dividend of 16.40 pence, to give a total dividend for the year of 23.50 pence, up 2.2% from 23.00 pence in 2023.
Vesuvius said it is cautious on market conditions for the year ahead "due to the uncertain economic environment arising from the negative impact of trade tariffs which continue to evolve, geopolitical volatility and the continuing structural weakness of Steel and Foundry markets in Europe."
It anticipates "broadly similar" profit in 2025 compared to 2024 on a constant currency basis.
The firm expects cash flow to be "significantly ahead" of 2025 given its "working capital focus and a more normalised level of capex".
Vesuvius said it is targeting return on sales of at least 12.5% by 2027 and cumulative GBP400 million free cash flow by 2027. Return on sales in 2024 was 10.3%, down from 10.4% in 2023, while free cash flow fell 53% to GBP60.8 million from GBP128.2 million in the previous year.
It is increasing its cost reduction programme to GBP45 million from GBP30 million by 2028.
Chief Executive Officer Patrick Andre said: "This has been a challenging year for Vesuvius with Foundry markets in Europe, North Asia and the Americas weakening significantly and global Steel production outside China negatively affected by the sharp increase of Chinese steel exports. Despite this, thanks to significant cost cutting, resilient pricing and market share gains, we have delivered a robust performance, maintaining our results at the level of 2023 on an underlying basis, demonstrating again the strength of our technologically differentiated business model.
Vesuvius shares were up 1.7% to 417.00 pence in London on Thursday afternoon.
By Michael Hennessey, Alliance News reporter
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