Chemring Group PLC on Tuesday hailed a record order intake which underpinned confidence in hitting full-year financial guidance.

Chemring is a Hampshire, England-based provider of technology products and services to aerospace, defence and security markets.

Pretax profit fell 31% to £15.2 million in the six months that ended April 30 from £22.1 million a year prior.

This came despite a 8.3% increase in revenue to £223.4 million from £206.3 million a year prior. This was driven by a strong performance at Roke, up 19%, and growth in its specialist energetic materials businesses offset by a weaker period for Countermeasures.

But underlying operating profit margin dipped to 11.2% from 12.7% primarily reflecting the impact of operational challenges at the Tennessee Countermeasures business in the period.

Chemring said the first half performance was in line with the board’s expectations.

Looking ahead, Chemring said it has an ambition to increase annual revenue to around £1 billion by 2030.

Chemring highlighted a record first-half order intake of £344.5 million and an order book of £1.04 billion, up 1.9% and 39%, respectively, from £338.2 million and £749.5 million a year prior.

Chief Executive Michael Ord commented: ‘The momentum seen in 2023 has continued with another period of record order intake and an order book of over £1 billion, the highest in Chemring’s history. This strong order intake across both sectors has further increased our order cover for the second half of 2024 to 93% and the board’s expectations for the full year are unchanged.’

Reflecting this, the company increased the interim dividend by 13% to 2.60 pence per share from 2.3p a year prior.

Shares in Chemring were down 0.6% to 392.00 pence in London on Tuesday morning.

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