Company News in Brief

Lilleshall, the building products, plastics and engineering group, lifted pre-tax profits by 30 per cent to pounds 3.1m ( pounds 2.4m) for the year ended 31 December. The company said two acquisitions - Crystalware household products and Bradgrange Packaging - had contributed significantly to the increase. There was a pounds 522,000 exceptional charge against the cost of restructuring a third acquisition, Barlow Fastener Centres. It was offset by gains from pension surpluses and the settlement of a lawsuit begun by the previous management. A 2.65p final dividend raised the total to 4.25p (4p).

Brabant Resources reversed pre- tax losses of pounds 4.8m to make a profit of pounds 366,000 for the year ended 31 December. The company reported an increase in oil and gas reserves. No dividend.

Grafton Group, the concrete, plastics and paint products maker, increased pre-tax profits to Ir pounds 3.9m (Ir pounds 3.5m) for the year ended 31 December. Final dividend is 3.75p, making 6.5p (6.25p).

Beauford, the troubled engineering and industrial products group, is proposing a reorganisation of the company's share capital involving the conversion of 7p con pref shares of 10p each into four new ordinary shares and six deferred shares.

Ordinary shares will be converted into one 1p ordinary and nine 1p deferred shares. It will eliminate the pounds 1.9m arrears of the preferential dividend, which it has been unable to pay out since July 1991. Group borrowings fell to pounds 11.7m ( pounds 17.5m) at 31 December 1992. The company admitted it would require an 'extraordinary and sustained improvement' in its trading performance over the next 10 years to make it possible for the company to redeem the con pref shares by 1 July, 2003.

Slough Estates has sold to La Mondiale, a French insurance company, for more than pounds 23m the 147,000sq ft building that it constructed in a joint venture with the Paris-based developer Capital & Continental and let to Sony as its Paris headquarters.