Marconi’s order books are bulging, with £6 billion of work brought in to the company and profits and turnover have soared.

The company’s results for the first half of the year have revealed that turnover topped the £3 billion mark.

Restructuring and acquisitions saw pre-tax profits go over £276 million, up from £253 million – roughly in line with expectations.

Leading the way was the communications business,  which is helping the firm boom. Marconi is planning to build a new headquarters in Coventry, creating more than 2,000 jobs.

Communications Networks sales were £1,507 million (2000: £947 million), an increase of 59 per cent. Optical Networks  sales were £631 million, an increase of 57 per cent like-for-like.

R&D expenditure was £323 million (2000: £207 million), an increase of 56 per cent.

Reported operating profit, before exceptional items and goodwill amortisation, increased by 7 per cent, or 26 per cent like-for-like, to £320 million (2000: £299 million).

An interim dividend of 1.9 pence per share up from 1.8 pence per share last year has been announced by the directors.

Commenting on the results, George Simpson, Chief Executive of Marconi said:

“The trend of accelerating sales growth continued with yet another half of strong top line performance. Underlying profitability also grew ahead of sales.

“The momentum in order intake from our blue-chip customer base, primarily of established network operators and Fortune 500 companies, supports a buoyant outlook.

“As we reported in our trading update in October, we remain confident that our ongoing success will drive continued strong growth.”