Johnson Matthey stays on track

The platinum and specialty chemicals group issued a reassuring update saying trading in its second half has been in line and it remains on track for the full year.

Morningstar.co.uk Editors 22 March, 2006 | 12:00AM
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The platinum and specialty chemicals group issued a reassuring update saying trading in its second half has been in line and it remains on track for the full year. Strong platinum prices and healthy demand for precious metals has helped underpin performance.

In a trading update ahead of ful year results, Johnson said its catalysts division has continued to perform well over the second half with the environmental catalysts and technologies (ECT) unit benefiting from growth in diesel emission control products in Europe. Demand for autocatalysts in the USA remains weak but sales in China and Japan are well up on last year.

Overall, Johnson expects ECT to achieve 10% growth in profits in the second half. The process catalysts and technologies (PCT) arm meanwhile has also achieved good growth this year, led by the ammonia, methanol, oil and gas catalyst business.

The group added that the £40m acquisition of Davy Process Technology earlier this year will help the PCT business in particular to grow sales of catalysts into both existing and new markets.

At the half way stage the catalyst division overall posted an operating profit of £65.2m, up 7% on last time.

Johnson also noted that continuing strong prices for platinum and buoyant trading conditions in the precious metals markets have benefited its precious metal products division. The division posted an 11% increase in operating profits to £30.6m at the interim stage.

The pharmaceutical materials division meanwhile saw sales improve in the second half after a difficult first half when its operating profits slumped 23% to £16.2m after a 13% fall in sales to £58m. The fall in sales reflected reduced income from carboplatin, a platinum based anticancer drug, which went off patent in October 2004, and lower revenues from contract research. Today, Johnson assured the division's profits in the second half will be ahead of first half levels.

Elsewhere the group's ceramics division has maintained the improvement achieved in the first half and should deliver good profit growth for the year, it said. The division posted an interim operating profit of £10.8m versus £9.2m last time.

Overall, the good trading in the second half, combined with the encouraging performance in the first half, means Johnson expects to achieve good growth in earnings for its year to 31 March.

Johnson's shares have put on a hefty 30% in the last six months but performance this calendar year has been pretty muted and rangebound as the market has become resigned to no more than an in-line full year performance.

The longer term outlook for the group remains very good, however, with growing demand for autocatalysts in Asia and new emission control standards for heavy duty diesel vehicles (HDD) set to help underpin performance.

Johnson is supplying several of the leading original equipment manufacturers with products to meet the HDD legislation. It reckons the major growth in this market will occur in October 2006 when all new HDD vehicles sold in Europe will need to meet the new standards. In North America similar legislation comes into force in January 2007.

Midmorning the shares were off 5p to 1436p, leaving them trading on a forward multiple of nearly 20.

Johnson will report its full year results on 1st June.

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