Waterford Wedgwood Looks For Acquisitions As Sales Improve

Waterford Wedgwood has reported a 28% increase in profits for the first six months of 1996. However, the company said that it still needed to lift income at underperforming divisions. Waterford Wedgwood said it was looking for acquisitions to help its drive to double the group's sales by the year 2000. Within the UK-based Wedgwood fine china and ceramics group, sales were up around 6%, but for the Johnson Brothers business, which is about breaking even, sales fell 7%. Mr R O'Donoghue, chief execturive of the Waterford division, said the Wedgwood division had shed 55 jobs to cut costs in some areas during the half year, but had also recruited 255 people elsewhere. Stuart Crystal broke even after notching up a 14% sales increase.