Langley Holdings, the engineering and industrial group, today published its IFRS Annual Report & Accounts for the year ended 31 December, 2016. Chairman Tony Langley said in his Chairman's Review of the business that profits before tax were up by 15% on the previous year, making 2016 a record year for the group.

The group reported a pre-tax profit of €122.7 million on revenue of €900.9 million Langley earned roughly 45% of its profits in EUR, 20% in USD, 20% in GBP and 15% in other currencies, although only a quarter of UK earnings were derived from the UK based businesses, the majority coming from the UK subsidiaries of the European divisions.

Langley comments on what he sees as the likely effects of Brexit and Trump on the group and says that Manroland Sheetfed, acquired five years ago this month, had now returned the group's initial investment in full.

The German printing press builder is the group's largest division in revenue and employee terms and has around 40 subsidiaries around the world. Under Langley's ownership the company has installed around 500 "Roland" printing presses, maintained several thousands more and applied for 169 patents. In 2014 they announced the Roland 700 Evolution, said to be the world's most technologically advanced printing press.

Piller, the German producer of power security systems, was the largest contributor to the group's result. IT hosting and Cloud data centers were Piller's main driver in 2016, although healthcare, aircraft ground power and naval military systems also featured. Piller's successes to date have been without any material levels of business from China and in 2016 the company secured a cornerstone project for the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Piller equipment is installed at most of the world's leading exchanges.

In November the group acquired the business and assets of Texas based Active Power (NASDAQ: ACP), a producer of kinetic energy storage devices, and merged the business into its Piller division.

ARO, Langley's French producer of welding technology for the automotive sector, also had another successful year on the back of a still buoyant sector. There was generally a dearth of investment in the cement, gypsum, steel and alumina sectors though and Claudius Peters, the group's German plant machinery producer, although profitable, was much less so on a subdued level of business.

Other Businesses Division (OBD) which comprises of: DruckChemie, the German print chemicals producer; Bradman Lake, the UK/US food packaging specialist and (all based in the UK); Clarke Chapman, a specialist crane builder; Reader Cement Products, a blender and packer of cement products; Oakdale Homes, a regional house builder and JND Technologies. The OBD performed satisfactorily overall and in line with expectations.