Defense contractor BAE Systems plc (BAE.L) reported Thursday that its first-half profit before tax declined to 508 million pounds from last year's 541 million pounds.
Attributable profit dropped to 390 million pounds from 429 million pounds last year. Earnings per share were 12.3 pence, down from 13.5 pence.
Underlying earnings per share were 17.1 pence, compared to 17.7 pence a year ago.
Revenue, however, increased to 8 billion pounds from 7.12 billion pounds last year. Sales, including share of equity accounted investments, increased to 8.47 billion pounds from 7.61 billion pounds last year.
Order backlog was 37.3 billion pounds, compared to 39.7 billion pounds last year.
The company further said it increased interim dividend by 2% to 8.4 pence per share.
Looking ahead, the company stated that with an anticipated trading bias to the second half of the year, it remains on track to deliver sales growth and continues to expect underlying earnings per share for 2015 to be marginally higher than in 2014. This is despite the lack of earnings accretion from share repurchases.
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