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Specialist product manufacturer Morgan Advanced Materials booked a 16% rise in annual profit as sales inched higher and cost efficiencies improved margins.
Pre-tax profit for the year through December rose to £109.7m, up from £94.9m on-year
Revenue rose 1.5% to £1.05bn, or by 0.8% on a constant currency basis, and headline operating margins rose to 12.8%, up from 12.1%.
Morgan Advanced Materials held its annual dividend steady at 11p per share.
The company said strong growth in its semiconductor and electronics, chemical and petrochemical, healthcare and aerospace segments had more than offset declines in industrial and automotive markets.
Margins had also benefited from an ongoing benefit of efficiency actions.
Turning to its outlook. the company said it expected to experience similar market conditions in 2020 as 2019, with weak industrial and automotive markets persisting and geo-political uncertainties remaining.
'However, we expect growth in our faster growing market segments to more than offset these market weaknesses,' it said.
Organic constant-currency revenue growth was expected to be flat-to-modest, with the first half slightly below that trend due to the impact of the coronavirus.