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Melrose Industries PLC on Thursday reported a narrowed annual loss and a rise in revenue, and it said preparations for spinning off part of GKN have progressed well. Birmingham-based Melrose aims to buy, improve and sell industrial companies. Revenue for 2022 was £7.53 billion, up 13% from £6.65 billion in 2021. This is compared to revenue consensus of £7.74 billion, cited by the Financial Times. Pretax loss narrowed to £307 million from £660 million, while adjusted pretax profit nearly doubled to £384 million from £194 million a year ago. Net operating expenses were reduced to £1.36 billion from £1.43 billion. In Aerospace, revenue was £2.96 billion, up from £2.54 billion, with an operating margin of 6.3%, up from 4.4% in 2021. Chair Justin Dowley said: ‘We are delighted with these results, and everything is on track for the demerger. We consider a restructured Aerospace business to be one of the best businesses Melrose has ever owned. We are confident that a combination of restructured and refocused high-class Engines and Structures businesses, and overall aerospace market recovery, positions these businesses for a significantly better-than-expected performance in 2023 and beyond.’ The so-called DemergerCo consists of the Automotive, Powder Metallurgy and Hydrogen businesses of GKN. Melrose bought the UK engineering firm in 2018 in a hostile takeover. Back in September of last year, Melrose said it planned to retain the Aerospace part of the GKN business and spin-off the rest as a separate London listing. In January, Melrose said the combined DemergerCo businesses recorded £5.20 billion in revenue in 2022, up 6% at constant currency rates. Operating profit was between £320 million and £330 million, up 21%. The operating margin was 6.3%, which Melrose said was up from 5.5% in 2021. Melrose declared a second interim dividend of 1.500 pence, giving a full-year payout of 2.325p per share, up 33% from 1.750 pence the year before. Shares were up 1.8% at 156.75 pence each on Thursday morning in London. Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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