Meggitt profit up on strong growth

LONDON (Reuters) - Aerospace engineer Meggitt (MGGT.L) posted a 59 percent rise in first-half profit Tuesday, shrugging off the downturn in civil aviation markets, and said it was comfortable it would meet full-year targets.

Meggitt's underlying pretax profit, including the contribution from the acquisition of U.S. rival K&F Industries last March, increased to 109.6 million pounds for the six months to the end of June, up 22 percent on a proforma basis, the group said.

The company's revenue increased 47 percent to 526.6 million pounds, up 14 percent on a proforma basis.

The group hiked its interim dividend 10 percent to 2.7 pence.

Meggitt, which makes aircraft brakes, flight displays and fire detection systems, said despite the high oil price and restricted credit markets, airplane manufacturers' order books are at record levels.

The practice of some airlines grounding parts of their fleet to cut costs would not have a major impact, it said.

"Our research tells us that globally around 4 percent of jets will be parked this winter, which represents 7 million pounds in spares sales, so it won't really hit us too hard," CEO Terry Twigger told Reuters.

Meggitt said all three of its divisions -- civil aircraft, military and energy -- delivered strong growth and the group expects similar levels of growth to continue.

"Order intake is good in civil aviation, energy is growing at record levels and the US defence budget will rise 9 percent in 2009 so the outlook for all parts of the business is very strong," said Twigger.