Although the world's largest currency printer missed out on its £100m target, as it had previously advised, it still recorded an underlying operating profit of £90.5m, up 43% on 2012/13 and more than double its pre-Improvement Plan profit of £40m.
Group revenue was also up, rising 6% to £513.3m, while the 12-month order book was up 5% year-on-year at £218m, including an 8% improvement in the Currency division's order book, which reflected "significant contract wins" albeit at "reduced contribution levels".
De La Rue chairman Philip Rogerson said: "[Our] results are good, we've been on a journey from £40m to £90m of operating profit over the last three years and we will achieve further operation efficiencies; continuous improvement is embedded and we do see significant opportunities within our core markets."
Chief operating officer and group finance director Colin Child added: "When De La Rue had its production issue back in 2010, which was the real catalyst for the Improvement Plan and everything that followed, the board and the senior management at that time was absolutely determined that coming out of that issue De La Rue would be a better company than when it went in.
"Financially we're in a better place, but it's much much more than that. Fundamentally this business is really in a much better position than it was three to four years ago: we're better equipped, we've got a better R&D programme and there's a professionalism and focus on meeting the customers' needs rather than perhaps at times historically we might have taken things a little bit for granted."
However, the ghost of the 2010 "paper production issues" lingers as incredibly, four years on from the discovery that certain paper test specification certificates at De La Rue's Overton mill had been falsified, discussions with regulatory authorities and the principal customer (the Bank of India) remain ongoing.
As such, the ultimate outcome of the production issues, including the financial impact of potential fines and the cost of resolution with the customer (for which no provision has been made), remains uncertain. De La Rue said it was equally impossible to "reliably estimate" how long it might take for the situation to be resolved.
Meanwhile, the hunt for a new chief executive following Tim Cobbold's departure remains ongoing, with Rogerson reporting: "We are well advanced in the process, we have a shortlist of people we are working through [although] I have nothing to announce yet."
