The weak pound boosted half-year revenues at Smiths Group, while moves to improve focus at the sprawling FTSE 100 engineering conglomerate led to better underlying profits.
A lower sterling exchange rate meant an 18 per cent jump in revenue to £1.62bn in the six months to the end of January, although the figure was flat after stripping out currency and the impact of acquisitions and divestments.
Proceeds from disposals helped pre-tax profit more than double to £346m on a statutory basis, while profit at the operating level which removes the effect foreign exchange and one-off items rose 8 per cent compared with the same period a year before.
Alongside the trading performance, management put this down to cost control, business imp…
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