De La Rue reports 24% profit rise - to open biometric passports factory in Malta today

Britain's De La Rue Plc, the world's largest non-government printer of banknotes, gave a confident outlook as it posted a 24 percent rise in first-half pretax profit and named a new chief executive. "In the current time we see no weakness in the market out there, we have not seen weakness for five or six years," outgoing chief executive Leo Quinn told reporters on Wednesday.

The statement coincided with the opening in Malta today of a second De La Rue factory, producing biometric passports. De La Rue has had one of the world's biggest banknote printing presses in Malta since the early 1970s.

De La Rue, which produces over 150 national currencies, announced that James Hussey, who has been with the company for 25 years, will succeed Quinn on Jan. 1.

The company posted a 24 percent increase in pretax profit to 49.8 million pounds ($77 million) for the six months to end-September, saying its core business in security paper and print had boosted growth.

De La Rue, which shares the majority of the banknote printing market with rivals Oberthur Technologies SA and Giesecke & Devrient, said revenue increased 14.4 percent to 245 million pounds due to strong sales in its currency business.

It raised its interim dividend 110 percent to 13.7 pence.

The results were at the top end of market forecasts.

However, the company's cash generation fell 53 percent to 13 million pounds after one-off contributions to its UK pension scheme and a fall in advance payments.

Investec Securities analyst Guy Hewett forecast De La Rue's businesses to have annual growth of 5-10 percent, and said the company had safe haven characteristics. "(But) we do not envisage making any major changes to our forecasts or PER-based share price target."

Quinn said: "We enter the second half with continued growth in our order book, providing excellent visibility for the full year and the first half of next year, and the board remains confident in the outlook for the current year".

Del La Rue said it would benefit in the longer term from a stronger euro and dollar, as much of its business portfolio is based in these currencies.