WEST Belfast specialist camera maker Andor Technology has delivered a strong performance in its last trading year, with revenue, profit and order growth against a backdrop of uncertain macroeconomic conditions.
It marks a significant turnaround on the previous year, and largely mirrors that of its parent company Oxford Instruments, of which Andor has been a subsidiary since being bought by the technology firm for £176 million six years ago.
Newly filed accounts show that overall company turnover in the year to March 31 increased to £75.2 million from £63.6m previously.
Just a tiny portion of that is in the UK (£5m), with the broad split of its sales being in the US (£26.7m), Asia (£27m) and Europe (£16.6m).
Operating profit rose from £7.8m to £11.6m, with the margin rising to 15.4 per cent.
Andor received a dividend of £3m in the year (up from £1.8m in 2018) and net interest was twice that of the previous year at £40,000, resulting in profit before tax of £14.7m (2018: £9.6m).
The company said its gross margins increased from 53.7 per cent to 56 per cent due to a “more favourable sales mix in the year, and the impact of foreign exchange movements”.
Andor said research and development activities declined from £5.5m to £5.1m, presenting 6.7 per cent of turnover.
But directors insisted this investment "continues to be strategically important and necessary to retain our competitive advantage".
Andor said it had cash balances of £17 million at year-end, down from £24.4 million in the previous year.
The company, set up in the late 1980s as a spin-out from the physics department of Queen’s University, also saw its staff numbers fall back slightly over the year from 282 to 276, though is overall pay bill still rose by just over £1 million to £16m.
The directors, who are currently headed by Donal Denvir, were paid a total of £908,000, with the biggest wage packet for an individual being £247,258.
Based at the Springvale Business Park in west Belfast, Andor develops and manufactures high tech scientific cameras, systems and software for research in life science and physical science markets.
End users of its cameras are broad in nature and range from understanding the formation of distant stars and galaxies to the development of anti-cancer therapies.
Full-year sales at Andor parent company Oxford Instruments to March 2019 rose 12.4 per cent to £333.6 million while pre-tax profit lifted 3.8 per cent to £35.5m.
