Last checked at 
(Alliance News) - Textile services firm Johnson Service Group PLC hiked its dividend Tuesday after a "strong" interim performance left it forecasting full year results ahead of expectations.
For the six months ended June, pretax profit widened 8.6% to GBP15.2 million from GBP14.0 million the year prior. This was after revenue rose 9.8% to GBP167.1 million from GBP152.2 million the year before, up 7.5% on an organic basis.
"This is a strong performance reflecting excellent sales growth, the benefits of recent acquisitions and continued high levels of customer retention across all market sectors," Johnson Chief Executive Officer Peter Egan said.
"We are particularly pleased with the strength and quality of our organic performance which has been achieved by investing capital in our operations giving increased production capacity to meet growing customer demand."
"We will continue to invest in our sites, including the completion of the new Leeds plant, allowing us to benefit from production efficiency gains as well as creating additional capacity in order to further increase revenues going forward," Egan added.
Johnson proposed a 1.15 pence per share interim dividend, up 15% from 1.0p the year prior.
"There is good momentum in the group and we have started the second half strongly," Egan continued. "In view of the encouraging performance over the summer months we anticipate that the results for the year will be slightly ahead of current expectations."
Shares in Johnson were unchanged at 163.40 pence in London on Tuesday.