Weir Group engineers modest 2.8% increase in profits

Published on Monday 21 March 2005 12:11

SCOTTISH engineering giant Weir Group today posted a modest 2.8 per cent rise in full-year underlying profits and forecast further growth this year as it announced plans to buy back up to £50 million of shares.

Weir, which last week announced the loss of almost 500 jobs in a drive to return its UK pumps and valves businesses to profitability, said profit before tax, goodwill and one-off items rose to 58.3m in 2004. The figure was broadly in line with market expectations.

As part of last week’s shake-up, manufacturing at Weir’s historic Cathcart headquarters in Glasgow is set to end after more than 120 years. The group told employees that 260 posts would go by the end of year, with the remaining 940 eventually relocated to a new Glasgow site.

Today’s annual results showed that operating profits at Weir’s engineering products arm fell by 7.6 per cent to 30.9m.

The group said results at the valves and controls division had been affected by the "poor performance" of the UK valves business. Total group turnover increased by 6.8 per cent to 847.6m.

Chairman Sir Robert Smith said: "The group remains in solid financial condition with a sound order book. The strong financial position has led the board to the decision to implement a share buy-back of up to 50m over a 12-month period."