Vesuvius Plc (LSE:VSVS) said trading in May and June remained stronger than anticipated, but warned that weakness in its end markets will continue into the second half.
The molten metal flow engineer expects to post a first-half trading profit (EBITA) of £127.4mln when it announces its results on 28 July.
“Our outperformance in H1 was due to the successful implementation of our pricing strategy to recover input costs as well as market share gains, supported by our technological differentiation,” it said in a trading update.
It reiterated that there remains significant uncertainty as to the strength of its end markets in the second half due to the ongoing geo-political environment and potential macroeconomic weakness.
“Due to this uncertainty, our expectations for trading in the second half of the year, including a material drop in volume compared to H1 and challenging cost inflation, remain broadly unchanged” it said.
As a result, it now expects its full-year trading profit to be towards the top end of the range of current analysts' expectations of between £155mln and £199mln.
The shares were up 7% to 346p in early morning trading.