Synectics sees a pick up in trading following December election

The Sheffield-based firm said the market has improved since the General Election and it has a healthy order book for 2020.

Chief executive Paul Webb said: "We hesitate the use the B (Brexit) word, but we found decisions on making investments very slow going from fairly early on in the year and that carried on right through the year.

"We are obviously reliant on new capital projects being sanctioned."

He said that business has improved since the General Election in December.

"People were just deferring decisions until they could see what happened.

"The lack of momentum in anything being decided in the UK hit us a lot harder than we expected."

The group said revenue fell 4 per cent to £68.5m and underlying pre-tax profit was down 14 per cent to £2.5m in the year to November 30.

The group reported a contraction in the UK passenger bus market and a "frustrating" slowdown in contract awards in the UK security integration sector.

In contrast, the group's leading position in global casino surveillance systems produced strong sales and profits, and "excellent" progress was made in the high end infrastructure sector, which is a key target market for the firm.

"Our strongest growth was in Asia Pacific," said Mr Webb.

"We did quite well in Europe as well. We secured a large project in Berlin for a new transportation system so that helped our performance in Europe.

"It was steady in the US. Our footprint in the US is almost exclusively in casinos so we think there must be some opportunity in infrastructure and transportation."

Synectics said 2019 was a mixed year for the group, but it has entered the current financial year with a firm order book up by over 50 per centcompared with the same stage last year and it sees the prospect of reduced uncertainty in the UK economy.

"It's a nice healthy order book now and the pipeline of new opportunities is at a similar level so it feels a little more comfortable than it did 12 months ago," said Mr Webb.

The group's order book on November 30 stood at £33m, up from £21m the previous year. The primary sources of this increase were the large, multi-year contract for Deutsche Bahn and a 100 per cent success rate with recurring contract renewals in its managed services sector.

The group took a £900,000 hit from an employment related legal claim in the US which has since been settled.

The board is recommending payment of a final dividend of 3.5p per share, bringing the total dividend payable for the year to 4.8p.