API has delivered uninspiring interim results. Pre-tax profits were unchanged at £4.9m and turnover only improved to £79m (£72m) despite the acquisitions of last year. The pre-tax line would have been stronger but for an exceptional charge of £1.6m incurred from the integration of API's hot stamping business with that of Astor (which was acquired last year). However, the real reason for the lacklustre figures was the price pressure and slow demand in API's markets. API's customers in Russia and the Far East faced cash liquidity problems and the fallout in the luxury drinks market in Asia hurt the group's foils laminates business. The only vaguely exciting piece of news concerned API's affiliate company in China. API paid £6.5m for a 51% stake in Shen Yong, a Shanghai-based manufacturer of hot stamping foil (and incidently the world's largest). Presently the Shen operation only supplies the Chinese domestic market, but the group has hopes of exploiting its capacity to enable it to service the export markets.