Profits boost at Key Technologies

Black Country-based specialist engineering company Key Technologies has seen a steady increase in its half year profits despite the tough environment for UK manufacturing.

The company today reported half year profits up 9.4% to £1.37 million in the six months to the end of December.At the same time, revenue rose 15.7% to £11.8 million.

The group employs 240 at three sites in the UK, 110 of them at Doulton Road, Cradley Heath, working on motors, railway signalling and communications products, as wel as low voltage switchgear.

The group's prospects were boosted by the announcement in September that its defence business, STS Defence, had become the first UK company in its product sector to be accredited for Nadcap, the global quality assurance standard for the aerospace industry. STS Defence supplies the Ministry of Defence amongst other customers in the UK and overseas.

Chairman David Grove said: "We have continued to benefit from our investment in new products, technology, productivity and efficiency improvements."The second half of the current financial year has started well and trading is in line with our expectations."

Shares in Key Technologies, previously known as STS International Ltd, are already showing a gain of 18% to £2 since they were first listed on the West Midlands on-line share trading platform Investbx following its successful fund raising in November 2008.

Today the company announced an interim dividend of 1.8p per share.