Mortice's annual results in line but misses profit expectations on increasing costs

Security and facilities management group Mortice forecast its full year revenues to be in line with market expectations, but it will miss its profits forecasts due to additional costs.Investment growth has driven revenues up by 20% against the previous year, helped by a competitive pricing in the facility management division, the company said in a statement.Positive growth in sales and marketing, a new enterprise resource planning system, the creation of a new command centre in Gurgaon and the start-up of operations in Sri Lanka also drove its turnover up.However, due to additional costs associated with its strategic growth plan, profits are expected to be lower than current market expectations.The company forecasts pre-tax profits to rise 19.2%year-on-year to $2.2m (£1.4m) and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization to be of $4.2m, an increase of 21.8%.Mortice shares were up 1.6% to 63.5p on Thursday at 11:51.