By Anthony O. Goriainoff

Kingspan Group PLC said Friday that first-half pretax profit rose on higher revenue boosted by increased trading profit, and that certain pockets of activity across the group experienced a lag in its recovery effort.

The Ireland-based building-and-insulation materials company said that pretax profit was 387.6 million euros ($391 million) compared with a profit of EUR297.2 million for the first half of 2021.

Revenue rose to EUR4.15 billion from EUR2.92 billion in the year-prior period.

Trading profit--one of the London-listed company's preferred metrics, which strips out amortization of intangibles--rose 32% to EUR434.2 million.

Trading margin fell 80 basis points to 10.5%, mostly due to a lag in the recovery of raw material inflation as well as an abnormally high margin in its insulation division in the prior period, the company said.

The company said that it experienced a lower order intake in the second quarter, and that global insulated panels order intake volume for the period to 30 June was precisely 50% of the total intake for the full year 2021.

The board declared an interim dividend of 25.6 cents a share, compared with 19.9 cents a year earlier.

"Whilst inflationary pressures have eased in recent months, the context of energy supply constraints over the winter months in Europe will be something we will be closely monitoring," Chief Executive Gene Murtagh said.

Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 19, 2022 02:49 ET (06:49 GMT)