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BUMPER SALES IN the UK for Cavan-based building materials heavyweight Kingspan were the major driver behind a jump in revenues and profits for the company in the first half of the year.
Most other markets saw revenues dip or remain static, with cashflow from the group’s Irish operations falling by €900,000 to €35.1 million.
On its Irish sales performance, the company said that market volumes are improving gradually from a “recent low base” but that “pricing remains under significant pressure”.
UK sales in the first quarter in particular, by contrast “grew strongly… as the general economy and new house construction remain on a path of recovery”.
Sales in the rest of Europe also dipped marginally from €316.6 million to €314.2 million, while a weak office building market in America contributed to a €5.9 million dip in sales there.
Bumper half year
However, the €44.6 million jump in UK sales was enough to drive a 4% jump in revenues to €889.3 million overall, while trading profits were also up impressively, coming in at €69.2 million, 24% ahead of the same period in 2013.
Kingspan Chief executive Gene Murtagh said that the company:
Has delivered strong growth in profitability, notwithstanding a tougher EU construction sector in the second quarter, and a global economic recovery that remains weak. Our order book carried good momentum into the second half of the year.
Davy delivered a glowing verdict on the powerhouse materials company’s half yearly results.
Analyst Flor O’Donoghue said that:
The group’s momentum is such that trading profits have now risen for nine consecutive halves, a record none of its peers can come close to replicating.
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When the sh⚡t hits the clam
I missed a week’s work with that bug. I took it as – Time off in loo
Some aphrodisiac they would be to get!
I’ve had norovirus (also known as winter vomiting bug). It’s awful. 24 hours of emptying your digestive system out at both ends, lovely! Also gave me the only fever I remember having as an adult. Took our babies a week or so to get over it. Almost everyone that was near someone who was sick with it caught it. And then, because ‘immunity is partial and temporary’ (thanks wikipedia), and it lives a really long time in any spot you didn’t manage to bleach clean, we caught it again, from ourselves, another twice or three times, over several years. Honestly, how and why anyone with that bug was still in work rather than at home in bed I have no idea. *mental note, avoid South Korean shellfish*
LOL to Deirdre and Stephen.
But Noro virus does sound horrible. I’ll be looking closely at all labelling of shellfish from now on.
Ah it’s grand if you get it in early January, saves you having to diet off the Christmas excess!
Just to give you an insight. This kind of thing doesn’t surprise me at all. I worked in Cheong’ju in 2000 teaching kids in a private school. There was never any toilet roll or soap in their toilets, and they never washed their hands…and this was quite a posh private school. I remember friday evenings particularly. The businessmen used to go for friday evening drinks. i’d be walking home at 9pm and they would be absolutely thrashed, stupid drunk, puking on the street and often would just unzip their fly and pee against a wall, sometimes just on the street in full view of a busy thoroughfare..very odd …if you ever read any accounts of the american marines that fought in the korean war 1950-1953..most at some stage will mention their disgust at crawling through paddy fields under fire…the koreans fertilised their fields with their own excrement..lovely!!!
There is a lot of food coming to ireland from completely unregulated countries. We have no idea what we are consuming. It’s a joke.
LOL Bandara!
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