Vesuvius not expecting any improvement in performance until 2026

(Sharecast News) - Molten metal flow engineering company Vesuvius slumped on Thursday as it said market conditions remained challenging and that it does not expect an improvement in its performance until 2026. In an update on the first half, Vesuvius said it had seen a continuation of the challenging market conditions highlighted in the trading update in May, with the wider uncertain macroeconomic environment and subdued global industrial activity persisting. This has led to continuing weakness in its end markets.

As a result, trading profit in the first half of 2025 is expected to be about £77m, consistent with the company's expectations and reflecting both short-term cost reduction actions and "the strong progress" of its structural cost reduction programme.

"Contrary to our previous expectations, we now anticipate that these challenging market conditions will persist for the balance of the year," it said.

"Consequently, the pricing environment remains difficult, in particular in Europe and China, limiting for the time being our ability to fully recover labour cost inflation. We however anticipate progressively improving our pricing performance over the second half of the year to partially recover those costs, albeit with a delayed effect."

As a result, the group now expect its second-half performance to be similar to the first, with further progress postponed until 2026.

At 1035 BST, the shares were down 6% at 364p.