Cost cutting pays at Cookson

THE series of cost-cutting measures taken by industrial materials conglomerate Cookson after its four profits warnings last year helped to preserve earnings in the first quarter of the current financial year.

Although group sales were 6% lower than in the fourth quarter at £436m, pre-tax profits were kept at the same level.

Cookson has almost exactly mirrored the global economy, with its three divisions - steel, ceramics and precious metals - experiencing a slow start to 2002 but finding that activity levels increasing as the quarter progressed.

The global electronics market appears to have run down its inventories to the point that demand is now picking up. Chief executive Stephen Howard said that market conditions in the second quarter of 2002 were 'expected to continue in line with those experienced in the latter part of the first quarter'.

The shares slipped 5p to 92 1/2p.