Specialist optical components and systems maker Gooch & Housego gathered up 6.5p to finish at 434p today, as the market warmed to a 28 per cent interim profits push.

Half-time figures to March revealed healthy growth in pre-tax profits from £2.4 million to £3.12 million on steady eight per cent turnover growth to £13.6 million despite the impact of meaningful exposure to the weak US dollar. Earnings soared 41 per cent north to 10.7p and the interim dividend was increased seven per cent to 1.5p.

Chief executive Gareth Jones flagged up a solid start to the year for AIM-quoted Gooch & Housego, highlighting especially good performances from NEOS Technologies, which ‘has had a tremendous start to the year and continues to break its own records’, and Gooch & Housego UK, with both businesses enjoying the benefits of strong demand for acousto-optics and precision optics.

Jones, with an eye on future growth, also noted good progress with the group’s major factory construction project and its ongoing reorganisation, with both remaining on schedule.

He was also keen to play up the group’s broader scope and possibility for expansion in new markets in the wake of last month’s acquisition of SIFAM Fibre Optics, an intriguing £5 million acquisition bringing on board optoelectronic products with ‘significant’ growth potential. Jones said SIFAM also supports the group’s initiatives in biomedical imaging and fibre lasers and offers opportunities for the joint development of instrument and system level products.

He was also at pains to point to encouraging developments at ChromoDynamics Inc (CDI), which has now completed the development of its first product. CDI, he said, has demonstrated the potential of its biomedical imaging system to automate tests that are important in the testing of bladder cancer, though Jones conceded ‘there is a long way to go’ before the technology’s commercial potential can be quantified.

The shares, trading against 52-week highs and lows of 450p and 311.5p, value Gooch & Housego at £81.2 million.