Torotrak FY pretax loss narrows

* See bottom line improvement in 2010

* Shares fall as much as 21.7 pct on profit-taking

May 27 (Reuters) - Torotrak Plc (TRK.L), a British transmission technology group, posted a narrower full-year pretax loss and said it expected an improvement in bottom line figures fiscal year 2010, helped by a strong licensing and engineering order book.

The company said its target for the current year was to come very close to breakeven in profit after tax.

Torotrak said trading position at its Outdoor Power Equipment (OPE) in the United States was down by 50 percent, while that in the commercial vehicles segment was improving, helped by its recent licensing agreement with Allison Transmission Inc, a maker of automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles.

Torotrak shares, which had more than tripled their value in the last three months, fell 21.7 percent in early trade on Wednesday but recovered later and were down 9 percent at 32.5 pence at 1009 GMT on the London Stock Exchange.

Xavier Gunner, an analyst with Arbuthnot Securities, attributed the fall in share prices to profit-taking.

The company said it was well positioned and resourced, both financially and operationally.

For the year ended March 31, 2009, the company's pretax loss was 1.99 million pounds ($3.18 million), compared with 2.4 million pounds last year, while revenue rose 25 percent to 4.6 million pounds. ($1=.6264 Pound) (Reporting by Usman Merchant in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)