Avon Protection PLC (LSE:AVON) reported stronger trading in the second half of its financial year to September than the first, thanks to strong demand for military helmets offsetting expected softness in gas masks.
With both order book growth and underlying earnings climbing higher, the Wiltshire-headquartered company said full-year results will be “in line” with internal expectations.
Revenue, excluding the armour business from which Avon is exiting, was “significantly” above the first half, it said, without providing any numbers.
This was mainly from ramping up the US Army contract for the Next Generation Integrated Head Protection System (NG IHPS) helmet, encouraging sales of the new EPIC line of ballistic helmets and shipment of a previously announced large mask order.
Chief executive Jos Sclater, who started in January, said: "We are now seeing more reliable financial performance as a result of our actions to strengthen the business by increasing accountability and improving operations and programme management.”
The order book at 30 September was 10% larger than the prior year, including US$59 million of outstanding orders for the NG IHPS helmet.
Sclater said management’s focus is turning to the medium-term plan to improve profit margins.
Earlier this month, the shares scraped decade lows below 600p but have risen to 669p in the run-up to today’s positive update.