LONDON -- UK engineering group GKN reported a 12 percent rise in adjusted pretax profit on Tuesday, just beating market expectations, and said it would grow ahead of both its main autos and aerospace markets in 2017.
The company, which supplies components for carmakers including Volkswagen Group, reported adjusted pretax profit of 678 million pounds ($842 million) on sales up 22 percent to 9.4 billion pounds, comfortably ahead of forecasts.
The supplier said it expected organic sales in its automotive unit would beat independent predictions of around 2 percent growth in global light vehicle production, with increases in China and Europe, but North America down.
Analysts were expecting GKN to report adjusted pretax profit of 668 million pounds on revenue of 9.1 billion pounds, according to a company-supplied consensus.
GKN ranks No. 35 on the Automotive News Europe list of the top 100 global suppliers with worldwide original-equipment automotive parts sales of $6.5 billion in 2015.
