Sales down in 2011 at Lupus

Lupus Capital, a supplier of building products to the door and window industry, said its full year results would show sales falling compared to 2010.

Total sales for the year to the end of December were expected to be around £249m, a fall of 6% compared with 2010, the firm said.

On a constant currency basis, this represented a drop in total sales of around 5% compared with last year.

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However, it added that underlying earnings per share for the year were expected to be towards the upper end of market expectations.

Lupus said the outlook for 2012 wasn't much better and it expected building products markets to remain relatively subdued.

The UK and Irish markets are expected to show further decline compared with 2011, and European markets would be down too, it said.

The trading environment in the US and UK building products markets during the second half of the year had proved to be as challenging as expected at the time of the firm's interim results, Lupus said.

It added that in its Oil Services division, good order books and demand levels had led to a strong performance in the second half of the year.

But it said it did not expect this trend to continue into 2012.

As of 31 December 2011, the group's underlying net debt was £91m, down slightly on the £94.7m it stood at the previous year.