Engineer remains cautious despite growing order book

The Doncaster-based group, which specialises in pneumatic processing systems for industries including food and mining, said trading in the six months to the end of August has been in line with its expectations.

The group's order book stood at 24.2m at the end of July, up from 20.5m in February. Growth came from orders mainly in the food, metals, chemicals and petrochemicals markets.

"We have made a solid start to our financial year and all our global operations remain focused on securing order intake," said chief executive Alex Stewart.

"We have secured some excellent breakthrough orders during the period under review, notably winning our first order in the Chinese cement market; our largest filtration order in Europe; a 1.4m order with Anglo American in Brazil and a 1m order in the US to launch our new petrochemicals strategy."

The group has added experienced staff to its operations in the US, UK, China and Brazil to boost sales.

But Clyde said it continues to struggle to accurately predict order placement.

"Economic conditions have generally improved in recent months and we have developed a healthy sales pipeline of prospects," said Mr Stewart.

"Accurately predicting when some opportunities in certain markets and territories will convert remains challenging but where we have developed senior-level relationships and presented the rapid return on investment our pneumatic conveying and air filtration solutions can generate, we have been successful.

"Our focus for the remainder of this financial year is to unlock the potential of our sales pipeline, which will deliver further returns to our shareholders."