Ultra Electronics profit boosted by increased US defence spending

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Defence, aerospace and energy contractor Ultra Electronics booked a rise in first-half profit after it benefited from increased spending on defence by the US government.

Pre-tax profit for the six months through June rose 90% to £37.9m, as revenue rose 10% to £387.1m.

Underlying profit, which strips out one-off items like acquisition costs and the value of derivatives, rose 6.7% to £46.5m

Ultra Electronics declared an interim dividend of 15p per share, up 2.7% on-year.

'It has been a solid start to the year,' chief executive Simon Pryce said.

'Ultra is benefitting from strong US defence spend and increased demand on existing programmes.'

'This helped us to deliver good order book and revenue growth and an improved financial performance in the first half.'

'We are also making encouraging progress in changing Ultra's culture and on our strategic journey to become a more collaborative and value focussed application-engineered defence, critical detection and control solutions provider.'

'We have positive momentum into the second half and remain confident that 2019 will be a year of good progress for Ultra.'