Pre-tax profits have fallen slightly at South Yorkshire's top company, Sheffield-based SIG.
The leading European supplier of insulation, roofing, interiors and specialist construction products saw profits fall by 0.7 per cent from £56.1 million to £55.7 million for the first six months of the year on total sales up 35.9 per cent at £1,494 million.
However, the Sheffield Business Park-based company, which led the annual Star Business/ Barber Harrison & Platt analysis of the Sheffield region's companies published earlier this week, boosted underlying operating profits by 20 per cent and remains confident about the future.
Chairman Les Tench said: "SIG has been through periods of reduced demand in various markets many times in the past. This is a solid performance from the group against a background of some challenging conditions."
Chief executive Chris Davies says increased interest charges as a result of group acquisitions and increases in fuel charges have had an impact on pre-tax profits and the Irish market has been difficult, but the company has achieved good sales growth, good profits growth and held its margins.
No more than 12 per cent of group sales go into the house-building market and demand from the industrial sector, including power generation, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and food processing, has remained robust.
SIG bought 24 companies in the first half of the year for a total of £126.9 million, adding 36 trading sites in the UK and Ireland and 25 in mainland Europe with annual sales of £185 million.
Larger acquisitions included an international supplier of specialist air handling products, and elsewhere in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning and building environments sector.
The group has increased its interim dividend from 8.0p to 8.3p.
n SIG reinforced its position as the Sheffield region's top company when it topped both the Star Business/Barber Harrison & Platt Top 100 Companies' turnover and profit tables, published earlier this week.
Group turnover was three times as large as its nearest rival, Sheffield-based Outokumpu Stainless, and profits were almost double those of the next most profitable company, Doncaster-based UK Coal.
SIG also employs twice as many people as any other company in the Sheffield region – a total of 11,600 in the UK and abroad, compared with 5,100 employed by Doncaster-based freight company EWS Railway.
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