11th Jul 2024 11:54
(Alliance News) - John Wood Group PLC on Thursday reconfirmed its full-year outlook as adjusted earnings improved in the first six months.
The Aberdeen, Scotland-based engineering services company said in the first half that ended June 30, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation increased by 4.1% approximately to USD210 million from USD201.7 million last year.
Revenue was down by around 6.2% to USD2.8 billion from USD2.99 billion.
The company ended the half with an order book totalling USD6.1 billion, up 1.8% from USD5.99 billion.
John Wood noted that it has already delivered USD25 million of its GBP60 million annualised cost savings target.
Chief Executive Officer Ken Gilmartin said: "As we look ahead, we remain focused on delivering our potential, including generating significant free cash flow next year. We are winning exciting and complex work across our businesses whilst progressing both our simplification and disposal programmes.
"We are pleased to reconfirm our outlooks for both this year and 2025."
At the end of the year John Wood expects net debt to be similar to levels seen in 2023 at USD694 million before leases.
The company said it is on track to deliver high single-digit growth in adjusted Ebitda, before the impact of disposals.
"Our operating cash flow performance is expected to continue to improve, partly through improved cash management across our business, especially given the second half weighted revenue profile of the group this year," John Wood said.
Beyond this, in 2025 John Wood expects to exceed its medium-term target due to the USD60 million cost savings from its simplification programme alongside continued growth.
John Wood shares were down 0.2% to 206.80 pence each in London on Thursday morning.
By Elijah Dale, Alliance News reporter
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