The resilience of its specialist optical and medical businesses has enabled Carclo (Ossett, West Yorkshire / UK; www.carclo.co.uk) to continue to trade in line with the expectations expressed in November 2008, when it announced its first results after the decision to put less emphasis on lower-margin production of automotive and electronics components. That strategy has continued to pay dividends in the second half-year, although automotive and electronics still account for 20% of group turnover. In its latest statement, issued on 31 March 2008 at the close of its financial year, Carclo said new contracts are continuing to be won in the medical sector and volumes are growing in LED optics. However, in order to maintain margins in its technical plastics business, the planned closure of the Slough / UK manufacturing facility is being brought forward, with the work being redeployed to other lower-cost plants in the UK.

Sales were 40% ahead in the first six months in the precision products division and business has continued to progress satisfactorily. Demand for specialist lighting products from the supercar market has been largely unaffected by the general turbulence in the automotive industry, but sales of antennas and cables have decreased. The conductive inkjet technology business is producing volume samples of radio-frequency identification (RFID) components for a number of companies and feedback on performance and achievement of cost targets is reported to be excellent. This technology for printed electronics is also being validated across a range of other applications.

Carclo made a pretax profit of GBP 4.5m (EUR 5.0m) in 2007 when there was an underlying 20% increase in operating profits. In the first six months of 2008, pretax earnings were up 10% to GBP 2.6m on sales of GBP 42.7m – see Plasteurope.com of 04.12.2008.