De La Rue trading in line amid challenging market

Commercial banknote printer De La Rue has reiterated that results for the current year are expected to be flat on 2011/12 after an 'in-line' performance in the third quarter.

The firm said on Friday that its Currency Division is expected to produce 6.4bn banknotes and around 9,000 tonnes of banknote paper in the financial year ending March 31st. The year before, print volumes were the same at 6.4bn, though paper volumes were much higher at 11,000.

De La Rue said that order intake has been "satisfactory" since the end of the first half (September 30th). However, on a positive note, while De La Rue said in November that it had experienced delays to a number of significant orders and these would not be received before the year-end, Friday's statement highlighted that "some" of these have now been collected.

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"As anticipated the banknote paper market remains challenging, reflecting the introduction of additional capacity by other manufacturers, with continuing evidence of pricing pressure," the company said.

The company said it remains confident of delivering its "Improvement Plan" which is targeting operating profit of over £100m in the 2013/14 financial year. This compared with an operating profit of £63.1m in 2011/12.

Shares were up 2.0% at 920p by 08:05.