UPDATE 1-Britain’s Renishaw interim profit jumps on lower costs, reinstates dividend

(Adds details, forecast)

Feb 4 (Reuters) – Engineering firm Renishaw Plc’s profit more than tripled for the half year, as it had lower costs due to curbs in travel and fewer exhibitions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The FTSE250 company posted an adjusted pretax profit of 43.4 million pounds ($59.00 million) for the six months ended Dec. 31 on Thursday, compared with 14.3 million pounds a year earlier. It also reinstating an interim dividend of 14 pence per share.

The company, which makes precision measurement equipment used in products ranging from jet engines to smartphones, said its reorganization program, which started last year also resulted in improved productivity and reduced the company’s costs.

“We expect these costs to increase once restrictions are lifted, although we do not expect travel to return to pre-pandemic levels as the use of online meetings has proven an effective tool for many communications,” the company said.

The company also said headcount has reduced further during the first half of the current financial year to 4,324 from 4,463 at June end, due to the non-replacement of some employees who left and a small number of redundancies.

Renishaw forecasts full year adjusted pretax profit in the range of 85 million pounds to 105 million pounds and revenue in the range of 515 million pounds to 545 million pounds.