Castings P.L.C. (LSE:CGS) on Wednesday reported pre-tax profit of £2.0 million for the six months to 30 September, down from £5.0 million a year earlier, after a two-month power restriction at its William Lee foundry hit output and pushed up costs.
Revenue for the period slipped to £85.9 million from £87.6 million in the first half of last year.
The Brownhills-based iron castings and machining group said it expects the full-year result to be in line with recently revised market expectations, which stood at adjusted pre-tax profit of £9.0 million prior to today's announcement.
Northern Powergrid cut external power supply to the William Lee site by around 50% for two months, a disruption the company reported in June, after a faulty transformer was repaired and full power restored on 24 May.
The outage forced the group to run premium-rate shifts and pay for express transport to protect customer supply, costs that continued into the period as the company worked to clear a backlog of customer arrears, a large proportion of which remained outstanding at the end of the half and is expected to be cleared in the second half.
The foundry segment, which includes Castings P.L.C., William Lee and the Scunthorpe-based Ductile Castings business, posted a segmental profit of just £0.2 million on external sales of £84.7 million, down from £4.0 million a year earlier, as segmental margin fell to 0.3% from 4.6%.
Foundry output still rose 2.6% to 21,500 tonnes despite the disruption.
The machining business, CNC Speedwell, was the bright spot: total revenue rose 3.0% to £15.7 million and segmental profit increased to £1.4 million from £0.8 million, lifting margin on total sales to 8.8% from 5.4%.
Underlying heavy truck demand, which accounts for approximately 70% of group revenue, improved during the period and has remained strong, with larger OEMs pointing to a 10% increase in the European market in the first half of calendar 2026, driven by replacement demand.
Cash and deposits fell to £13.2 million from £15.5 million a year earlier, after the group paid a £6.2 million dividend; cash generated from operating activities was £4.9 million, down sharply from £16.8 million in the comparative period.
The Scunthorpe ductile castings operation continued to trade profitably with an increasing customer list, a facility the group established in June 2024 that reported profitably again this half and which management says extends its offering into power generation and infrastructure markets.
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The newly commissioned foundry production line at William Lee, which added roughly 12,000 tonnes of gross capacity when installed late in the last financial year, saw its ramp-up slowed by the power outage, though management said its enhanced casting dimensions are already letting the group quote for and win work previously outside its scope.
The group invested £2.1 million in the foundry businesses during the period, chiefly on plant upgrades, and £1.3 million in machining, including replacing older machine tools and adding a second solar panel installation.
An interim dividend of 4.21p per share was declared, unchanged from the prior year, payable on 8 January 2027 to shareholders on the register at 27 November.
Simon Bourne, chief executive of Marshalls P.L.C., joined the board as a non-executive director with effect from 5 November, taking seats on the audit and risk, nomination and remuneration committees.