Fenner warns on earnings as commodity, oil prices slide

(Adds details, analyst comments, share movement)

Jan 14 (Reuters) - Fenner Plc (LSE: FENR.L - news) , a maker of conveyor belts and polymer products, said it expected the steep fall in oil prices and weak commodity prices to curb demand for its products, hurting its full-year earnings.

The company expects full-year earnings to be slightly below its previous guidance.

Fenner shares fell as much as 10 percent in early trading to their lowest since June 2010. They recovered later and were up 2.1 percent at 205 pence 0847 GMT.

The company, which has already been hit by the slowdown in the mining industry due to oversupply, said it had implemented cost-cut measures and deferred certain capital projects to control margins.

Fenner said it would take an exceptional charge related to the cost cuts but did not quantify it.

The deferral of future major projects is expected to significantly reduce capital expenditure in 2016 than previously indicated, the company said.

"The good news is that the management has begun to accept that it is not operating in growth markets and it needs to stop throwing more good money after bad," Panmure Gordon analyst Sanjay Jha said in a note.

Panmure Gordon said it expected Fenner's earnings per share to fall by at least 28 percent in the current year, while anticipating a 40 percent cut in dividend.

Liberum analysts expect full-year consensus EPS to fall by about 10 percent to about 20 pence, "slightly below" the previous consensus range of 21-23 pence.

Margins in its largest Engineered Conveyor Solutions (ECS) division continued to decline as it has not yet seen a recovery in its markets, Fenner said.

The company generates about 60 percent of its total revenue from the ECS unit, and the rest from its Advanced Engineered Products division.

Fenner added that the cost-cut actions would reduce cash expenditure across the group by 9 million pounds ($13.7 million) on an annualised basis. ($1 = 0.6588 pounds) (Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)