Laird cuts payout on profit fall
Electronics group Laird yesterday posted a 56 per cent fall in 2009 profits and cut its dividend after a year in which customer demand slumped and it was forced to carry out a rights issue. The FTSE 250 firm, which supplies companies such as Samsung and Nokia, reported underlying pre-tax profit from continuing operations of £26.5m, compared with £60.6m for 2008. It cut the full-year dividend to 6p per share from 10.3p in 2008.