A PENARTH-BASED company is celebrating a “strong performance” in the last financial year that has led to revenues increasing by more than 21 per cent to £31.8million.

EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc (AIM: EKF), the point-of-care diagnostics business based on Stanwell Road, said that it traded well for the 2013 financial year with unaudited revenues for the full year of approximately £31.8m, an increase of more than 21 per cent on the previous year, 2012 and £26.1m.

The Company has seen sustained revenue growth throughout the period with strong revenue growth in the second half of the year, which showed a 13 per cent increase on the first half, £16.9m vs. £14.9m.

A company spokesman said: “Adjusted EBITDA for the period is expected to be in line with consensus expectation, being an increase of over 40 per cent on the previous year, 2012 and £3.2m. “This strong performance in adjusted EBITDA reflects both the increased profits generated on higher sales as well as the continued solid control of administrative expenses throughout the Group.”

He added: “The cash position of the Company remains strong, with cash balances as at December 31, 2013, of £2.55m (2012: £4.33m), reflecting the deferred consideration payments to the vendors of Quotient Diagnostics Ltd and Stanbio Inc made in the first half of the year, an increase in trade debtors as a result of the high levels of sales in December, and investment in EKF Molecular Diagnostics.

“For the second year in a row, sales of higher margin reagents, particularly Beta-Hydroxybutyrate (BHB) have continued to perform strongly, resulting in our market share of these important cash generative products being held. Alere has continued to drive the HemoPoint H2 sales in the US and we are continuing to grow our market share as we see higher levels of pull-though of cuvette sales on an ever increasing installed device base. The Company has also seen significant growth across all of the major product ranges; Biosen instrument sales have grown by 75 per cent and Quo-Lab and Quotest sales have grown by 74 per cent.

“Sales growth in the Americas continued to be strong (more than 28 per cent) despite the negative impact of the dollar exchange rate and the fact that a significant potential tender win expected to conclude before the year end has been delayed until H1 2014. Additionally, as recently announced, the advances made within EKF Molecular with Pointman leads to a very positive outlook.”

Julian Baines, CEO of EKF, said: “I am once again delighted with the strong performance of the business this year. The increased revenues and adjusted EBITDA over last year is a reflection of all the hard work which the team put in during both 2012 and 2013 in integrating the businesses following our healthy acquisition strategy in 2010 and 2011. Focussing on driving product sales and streamlining processes throughout the Group has reaped rewards across the organisation, both financially and structurally. Finally, we have seen significant advances in EKF Molecular and I am looking forward to continued solid growth in 2014. ”

The Company will confirm the date for the announcement of its preliminary results for the year ended December 31, 2013, in due course.