Shares in British product-testing firm Intertek Group jumped by nine per cent to their highest level since May after it posted an improvement in first-half underlying revenue growth and maintained its full-year guidance.
Intertek, which tests anything from oil to children's toys to check they comply with regulatory standards, said its underlying revenue grew 1.4 per cent to £1.06 billion, from £1.02bn, in the first-half of its financial year.
Chief executive Andre Lacroix noted a strong performance in its products-related business, particularly in consumer goods, electricals and commodities, which had helped offset challenging conditions in its oil and gas capital spending business.
Energy companies have been slashing investment budgets following a plunge in oil prices.
"This is obviously a situation that we cannot ignore. This is 10 per cent part of our earnings in total," Mr Lacroix said.
"It is reasonable to believe that the capex reductions will continue in the next few months ...We have to cycle through that time, and over time minerals and oil and gas will start growing again," he added.
Pre-tax profit rose to £139.1 million in the first half of its financial year, compared with £119.8m a year earlier.
"There has been momentum on the organic growth as we have moved through the quarter and there has been a very strong margin performance," said Numis analyst Steven Woolf.
"The results themselves are towards the top end of expectations so there's an element of recovery on that side of things," he added.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here