£5m losses after revenues drop at listed electronics business

THE end of a major contract resulted in a loss-making first half at Filtronic as revenues dropped sharply.

For the six months to the end of November 2014, the Shipley-based designer and manufacturer of microwave electronics products for the wireless telecoms infrastructure market, reported revenue of £7.3m compared with £20.1m for the same period last year.

Pre-tax losses came in at £5.3m compared to a pre-tax profit of £93,000 in 2014, half of which was attributed to its wireless business, where sales fell from £16.5m to £3.9m following the completion of its TV interference mitigation filter contract.

It said the figures were also the result of the slower than anticipated development of new product sales to original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers, where the company is focusing its business development strategy.

Filtronic added that the Broadband business has traded marginally lower than in the first half of the previous financial year and slightly below the level it had expected.

Looking ahead,  Howard Ford, chairman, said: “Whilst we are disappointed with the sales performance in the first half and foresee that the upturn in the second half is likely to be later than we had originally planned, we remain confident in our strategy and in the sales growth potential from the OEM products we have developed and are continuing to develop leading to a much improved trading performance over the medium-term.”