Renishaw shares fall after weak Asia demand prompts forecast cut

By Pushkala Aripaka

(Reuters) - Shares of Renishaw Plc fell more than 10 percent on Thursday after the British engineering group cut its full-year profit forecast, citing weak sales in Asia and a softness in demand from makers of consumer electronics.

The company, which has a market capitalisation of 3.06 billion pounds ($4.03 billion), supplies precision measurement equipment used in products ranging from jet engines and smartphones to medical equipment and satellites.

Renishaw made nearly half of its revenue from the Far East, including Australasia, in 2018, with its metrology business accounting for more than 90 percent of its total sales.

It warned in January that the business was facing weak demand.

The company now expects adjusted pretax profit of between 117 million pounds and 135 million pounds, down from its previous expectation of between 140 million pounds and 160 million pounds.

Renishaw also cut its total revenue expectation to a range of 595 million pounds to 620 million pounds.

Shares of the FTSE-250 company, which lost about 18 percent of its value in 2018, were down about 10 percent at 3,782 pence as of 1009 GMT, after early falling more than 15 percent.

Renishaw's weak forecast also hit shares of its Swedish peer Hexagon.

($1 = 0.7595 pounds)

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Edmund Blair)