Avon Technologies (LSE:AVON) on Tuesday reported group revenue of $353.7m for the year ended 30 September, up 12.7% on the prior year, as adjusted operating profit jumped 50.6% to $60.7m.
The London-listed maker of military and law-enforcement protective equipment said adjusted operating margin widened to 17.2% from 12.8%, comfortably above its 14-16% target range, while adjusted basic earnings per share climbed 57.1% to 143.3 cents.
Statutory profit for the year more than tripled to $31.8m from $10.3m, with statutory basic earnings per share rising to 108.4 cents from 34.9 cents.
Reported operating profit of $47.8m carried $5.5m of amortisation of acquired intangibles and $7.4m of transformation costs, down from $15.4m of transformation spend in the prior year.
Return on invested capital rose to 27.6% from 18.6%, while net debt excluding lease liabilities fell 32.7% to $33.7m, leaving leverage at 0.43 times against 0.86 times a year earlier.
Free cash flow more than doubled to $30.9m from $12.6m, with cash conversion improving to 92.7% from 90.3%.
The total dividend per share rose 8.9% to 26.8 cents.
Avon Protection, which supplies respiratory and filtration systems including DoW filters and NATO-spec FM50 respirators, generated revenue of $190.3m and an adjusted operating margin of 22.5%, up from 19.9% a year earlier.
Team Wendy, the ballistic helmet and head-protection division that had suffered a testing backlog at the half-year stage, lifted revenue to $163.4m and improved its adjusted operating margin to 11.0% from 4.6%, aided by record production of more than 200,000 helmets in Cleveland during the year.
Group orders received totalled $353.6m, roughly flat year-on-year, leaving a closing order book of $262.7m, also broadly unchanged from $262.8m; Team Wendy's order book grew to $151.9m, including $69m of ACH Gen II and $63m of NG IHPS orders, while Avon Protection's book eased to $110.8m from $117m, a move the company attributed to comparison against Ukraine-related orders booked in the prior year.
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Management said the results mark completion of the three-year STAR transformation programme, with the group exceeding all its medium-term revenue, margin, ROIC, cash conversion and leverage targets a year ahead of plan.
"With a clear strategy, a talented team and a strong foundation in place, I am confident that Avon's best is yet to come," said chief executive Jos Sclater.
The company said the operating margin improvement reflected stronger execution, productivity gains and operating leverage, plus some beneficial one-off items including US tariff refunds.
Avon said it has used the results to set out a new "Improve. Grow. Compound." strategy, targeting compound annual revenue growth above 5%, adjusted operating margins of 16-18%, annual EPS growth above 10% and free cash flow above $175m over the next three years, with five-year group revenue targeted above $600m while maintaining ROIC above 18%.