Solihull kitchen equipment maker Aga Foodservice was today toasting a strong trading update after success overseas.
The company said its product-led "internationalisation" had worked well and provided a solid platform for sales growth in 2006.
The makers of the traditional cast iron stoves began targeting mainland Europe and North America in 2001 after Glynwed, as the group was originally known, sold its piping business and decided to concentrate on its kitchen appliances arm.
It operates in the UK, United States and Europe and said its expansion into Eastern Europe last year had brought encouraging sales. In September the company revealed its foreign customers bought a quarter of the 6,200 own-brand cookers it produced in the first half of the year, supporting the business at a time when Britons were making fewer big ticket purchases.
The group sells Agas in four stores in Paris and in the Domain department store chain in North America. It also operates in Amsterdam and Oslo and is opening its first outlet in Milan next month.
Its commercial businesses, which provide cookers and ranges to supermarkets and bakeries, such as Aga Baker, is growing in Russia, the Ukraine and Poland, chief executive William McGrath said.
The company's strongest performing products for 2005 were its classic-style electric Aga ranges - which it introduced 18 months ago and sells for around £2,700 - and its Rangemaster 90cm cookers, which cost in the region of £1,500.
In a trading statement the company said it had an "excellent" year in the Irish market following the acquisition of Waterford Stanley, the range cooker and stoves manufacturer for £9.4 million in June.
In North America its consumer cooker and refrigeration business performed well, as did Aga Bakery after it introduced the Thermoglaze doughnut maker.
In the UK, its commercial business was boosted last month with a five-year contract to provide cooking facilities to HM Prison Service. The contract is worth more than £5 million in the first year, it said.
The group also owns the 54-store ceramic tiles chain Fired Earth, which experienced a more challenging trading year than its core cookware business as consumer spending in the UK slowed.
Mr McGrath said: "We knew consumerism in the UK was bound to slow down, so we needed a balance and developed it overseas.
"We see 2005 and 2006 as a vindication of that strategy."
Andrew Douglas, equity analyst at the Birmingham office of KBC Peel Hunt estimated pretax profit of £46.1 million and recommended to "buy".
"Aga seems to have had a decent year, especially with the Aga and Rangemaster cookers," he said. "There are still pockets of weakness due to the up and down of the retail market, but generally the group is trading well." ..SUPL:
