Irish building materials group Kingspan posted a better-than-expected 30 per cent rise in first-half operating profit today and indicated full-year growth may be slightly better than projected.
Operating profit for the six months to the end of June rose to €114.2 million, compared with €80 million a year earlier and an average forecast of €108.9 million in a Reuters poll.
Revenues at Kingspan, whose insulation businesses are benefiting from new European regulations requiring homes to be more environmentally friendly, rose 34.4 per cent to €908.4 million versus the €866.3 million expected by analysts.
Growth rates in the first half were also helped by factors that will not be repeated in the second part of the year, however, such as the first-time inclusion of acquisitions and unseasonably good weather in the early months of the year.
A cooling in Ireland's once booming property market is also expected to affect house building in the second half of 2007, though analysts say Kingspan's exposure to the country's residential sector is only about 8 to 10 per cent of sales.
The company, which in June repeated earlier guidance that operating profit this year would rise "in the region of 20 per cent", said on Monday that it now expected an increase of "at least 20 per cent".