Ultra Electronics profit falls on defence budget cuts
Aug 4 (Reuters) - Ultra Electronics Holdings Plc posted an 8.8 percent decline in first-half underlying pretax profit as the impact of U.S. defence spending cuts continued to hurt the British military engineer.
The maker of gunshot detection equipment and sonars for submarines said the end of the first half saw increased orders as stability in the United States and UK defence markets increased.
Underlying pretax profit for the six months ended June 30 declined to 50.5 million pounds ($85 million) from 55.4 million pounds a year earlier.
Ultra Electronics (Other OTC: UEHPY - news) separately said that it had won a 166 million pound contract for the manufacture of sonobuoys for the U.S. Navy with its joint venture Sparton Corp (NYSE: SPA - news) . ($1 = 0.5942 British Pounds) (Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)