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Vesuvius PLC on Wednesday noted continued general weakness in its end markets with the exception of India, but expects to improve its pricing performance as it posted a profit decline. The London-based molten metal flow engineering and technology company said pretax profit fell 27% to £56.0 million in the first half of 2025, from £76.7 million a year ago. Revenue declined 3.1% to £907.5 million from £936.5 million. Vesuvius maintained its interim dividend at 7.1 pence per share. Looking ahead, Vesuvius expects second-half performance to be similar to the first half. Chief Executive Officer Patrick Andre said: ‘With the exception of India, we have seen a continuation of the general weakness in our end markets which we highlighted in our annual general meeting trading update in May. We now anticipate that these challenging market conditions will persist for the balance of the year, particularly in Europe. The pricing environment has also been challenging during the first half, in particular in Europe and China, limiting our ability to fully recover labour cost inflation. We however anticipate progressively improving our pricing performance over the second half of the year to partially recover this cost inflation, albeit with a delayed effect.’ Vesuvius added that it remains confident in growth potential of its steel and foundry markets and in its ability to improve profitability amid cost reduction efforts. Vesuvius shares rose 2.4% to 363.46 pence each on Wednesday morning in London. Copyright 2025 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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