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Chairman's Report
I am pleased to report that, although we had been expecting poor results for this half year because of slow growth in the world economy, the company has performed very satisfactorily.Operating profits for this first half are in fact very much (19) with those for the corresponding (20) last year. Profits reached £l 15 million before tax, compared with £l 16.3 million last year. Much of our success in the last six months can be (21) to the fact that all our major construction projects remained on schedule. Particularly pleasing was the early (22)of a major building contract in Canada.
The company has made good progress with the initiatives announced at the Annual General Meeting. The majority of shareholders (23) the Board's decision to sell the company's loss-making engineering (24). It was the Board's belief that the company would (25) most benefit by (26) its resources on the expansion of its construction activities. Negotiations with a potential buyer began in February and are now at a critical (27).However, we feel that we are not as yet in a (28) to comment on what the outcome is likely to be.
In June, we made a successful (29) for the Renishaw Construction Company of Hong Kong SAR, in order to give us greater (30) to markets in South East Asia. We still have sufficient resources to pursue our growth (31) and are at present (32) several other business opportunities which, like Renishaw Construction, would (33) new markets to us.
