Home safety products group reduces City’s alarm

HOME safety products supplier Sprue Aegis has avoided the worst-case scenario it presented to shareholders that resulted in its shares crashing.

In April its shares fell by half, wiping off £65m from the company’s market value, after it warned that it could lose nearly £2m in the first half of 2016.

However a strong performance last month resulted in a six-month operating loss of £0.9m. Sales were £25.9m, compared with £56.5m for the same period in 2015 – due to a massive slump in sales in France.

The company now expects to achieve an operating profit of £1.9m in 2016 from sales of £58.0m, “subject to there being no further net adverse foreign exchange rate movements”.

Since its shares crashed in April, it has slowly recovered more than one-third of the fall. At last night’s closing share price of 176p, Sprue had a market value of £80m.