Rotork PLC on Thursday began a new share buyback programme of up to £50 million, which it had announced with its annual results earlier this month.
The Bath, England-based manufacturer of industrial flow control equipment said the first tranche will begin on Thursday and end no later than May 24 for up to £10 million in shares.
Rotork was up 0.3% to 327.40 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
Rotork said the board decided to return cash to shareholders as it has ‘retain[ed] a strong balance sheet’ and ‘remains a highly cash generative business with a strong cash position that provides us with considerable financial flexibility’.
Earlier this month, Rotork said pretax profit rose 21% in 2023, to £150.6 million from £124.1 million in 2022.
Revenue was up 12% in the year to £719.1 million from £641.8 million, while basic earnings per share increased 22% to 13.2p from 10.9p.
Rotork credited the year’s success to a continued recovery in the oil and gas sector in 2023, as well as an improvement to supply chain issues in the second half of the year. It said the latter led to a sales increase across all three of its divisions.
The company had £134.4 million in net cash at December 31, up from £105.9 million at the end of 2022. Rotork declared a final dividend of 4.65p per share, up 8.1% from 4.3p in 2022. This brought the full-year dividend to £7.20p, up 7.5% from 6.70p.
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