Filtronic provides 'reassuring update' at AGM

However, the Leeds-based company said the reschedule delays lasted longer than anticipated, resulting in the group trading broadly in line with the same period last year.

The firm said it has remained fully operational throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and all office-based employees returned to the office during the summer months.

It said its core engineering developments remain on track against their respective milestone delivery plans and positive customer feedback has been received on the progress and quality of the developments, despite the disruption in the macro-environment.

Recent investments in manufacturing and test capacity have also allowed more efficient loading of factory resources and the ability to respond with flexibility to changing customer demand.

The firm will tell shareholders at its AGM today: "The end markets we supply into remain reasonably robust, but slow order intake has been experienced in the public safety market as our lead customer continues to experience in-field rollout constraints.

"New business acquisition remains a challenge as opportunities for customer engagement remain constrained and, to address this, we have recently strengthened the sales and marketing team and added a channel partner, Global Telecom Partners, in North America who have presence in the north eastern US states.

"We are actively working to add more channel partners to expand this coverage to other regions of the US market. Despite these challenges we were pleased to recently receive further engineering development contract wins, which whilst relatively small in size, have the potential to lead to larger revenues in the next year and beyond."

Analyst Lorne Daniel at FinnCap said: "This is a reassuring update. Our forecasts remain under review given the pandemic uncertainty.

"Given the exceptional background of Covid-19 lockdown and the client order rescheduling delays, this news is welcome.

"With its end markets remaining ‘reasonably robust’ and £1.9m of cash and the security of £6.6m in undrawn facilities, Filtronic is in a relatively healthy position approaching the interims. We look forward to reintroducing forecasts and target price as visibility improves and management feels sufficiently confident to provide guidance."