Sales hit £76.6m thanks to favourable foreign exchange rates and contributions for CTi and LUZ
Companies: RWS Holdings plc
Intellectual property specialist RWS Holdings says it has an "outstanding" six months for the first half of the year, with revenues up 35%, operating profit up 28.4%, and adj pre-tax profit up 39.6%.
RWS, which is a provider of intellectual property support services, says earnings per share have increased 40.8% to 6.9p, and as a result, it is raising the interim dividend by 13% to 1.3p.
Sales for the period hit £76.6m thanks to favourable foreign exchange rates and contributions for CTi and LUZ. Overall gross margin improved by 200 bps (2%), even after already advancing considerably in 2006.
Chairman Andrew Brode said it had been a period of extremely strong performance across the Group's service offerings, with the completed integration of CTi complementing its existing life sciences offering operationally and geographically:
"As the premier global supplier of intellectual property support services and now a major force in life sciences, we believe we are exceptionally well positioned to drive further international expansion...
Both our financial and market positions remain strong and we continue to see an interesting pipeline of niche acquisition opportunities to complement our organic growth."
Looking to the second-half, he said the Board was anticipating further progress, with the full benefit of the LUZ acquisition contributing strongly. Trading in the first two months of H2 has continued in-line with the first half, further assisted by favourable currency and LUZ contributions.
