Cobham sees earnings picking up in second-half of 2016

(Reuters) - British engineering firm Cobham Plc (COB.L) narrowly missed the earnings range it had hoped to achieve for 2015, and said earnings would pick up only towards the second half of 2016.

Shares of the company, which specialises in aerial refuelling equipment, fell as much as 10.2 percent to 232.4 pence at 0910 GMT, making them the largest percentage losers on the FTSE250 (.FTMC) on Thursday, and posting their worst fall in three years.

Analysts from RBC Capital Markets and Liberum pointed to the company's 2016 forecast for the fall in share price.

Cobham said it expected trading in its defence business, its largest, to remain stable in 2016 but its consumer business faces challenges due to lower spending by its customers.

"...what we think could continue to weigh on sentiment is Cobham's less than reassuring comments about where these markets could be heading in 2016," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Robert Stallard.

The company, which posted full-year earnings of 19.5 pence per share on Thursday, had warned investors in November that 2015 earnings per share would be at the bottom end of the 20.1 pence to 21.7 pence range that analysts expected.

It had cited lower demand for its satellite communications products in the Asia-Pacific region and in oil and gas markets, plus delays in receiving some anticipated orders in its U.S. surveillance business in its warning.

RBC'S Stallard said the possibility of things getting worse before they got better could not be ruled out.

(Reporting by Vidya L Nathan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi and Sunil Nair)