18th Feb 2014 08:28
LONDON (Alliance News) - John Wood Group PLC Tuesday said it has performed well in 2013, with strong pretax profit driven by higher revenues and margins, however it warned of a fall in profits in its engineering unit during 2014 as expected.
The oil services company said its pretax profit increased 14% to USD412.8 million for the full calendar year 2013 from USD361.4 million, slightly missing its analyst consensus figure of USD424 million.
John Wood Group said its revenues increased 3% to USD7.06 billion from USD6.83 billion in 2012, with an 11% revenue increase at its engineering division and a 8.3% revenue increase at its PSN division significantly offsetting a 19% fall in revenues from its GTS division.
The company said in December that its full-year performance should be in line with its previous expectations, with increased revenues and margins leading to earnings before interest, tax and amortisation growth of around 15% to roughly USD530 million.
John Wood Group said its earnings before interest, tax and amortisation increased 16% to USD533.0 million from USD459.1 million and its adjusted diluted earnings per share increased to 98.6 cents compared from 85.2 cents in 2012.
The company also announced a 14.9 cents final dividend, increasing its full-year total dividend 29% to 22.0 cents from 17.0 cents in 2012.
The oil services company said in December that its engineering operations are on track to deliver EBITA growth of 10% to 15% in 2013 based on substantial upstream activities in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, continued benefit from onshore pipelines due to the US shale boom and general downstream, process and industrial improvements.
The company's engineering division achieved EBITA growth of 12% to USD246.0 million from USD220.0 million in 2012.
However, the company reiterated an announcement in December that it expects EBITA at its engineering division unit to be about 15% down in 2014 compared with 2013, blaming completion of significant projects, delays in other projects offshore and a particularly weak market in Western Canada.
John Wood Group also said its PSN unit, which provides a wide range of services such as training, decomissioning, project management and operations and maintenance,also increased its EBITA margin by a strong 27.9% to USD262.1 million from USD205.0 million as the company moved its overall business mix towards shale operations, overheads were reduced and it received lower losses from some troubled operations in Oman.
As expected, its power plant and wind turbines business, Wood Group GTS, delivered 8.8% lower EBITA at USD80.8 million from USD88.6 million in 2012, due to lower profits from its power technology business and some recent maintenance deferrals. It is putting all of its gas-turbine operations into a joint venture with Siemens, and expects performance for the new venture to be flat in 2014.
The company has already achieved some good news in 2014 with the award of two services contract extensions in Africa worth USD250 million during January, and the announcement of a new joint venture partnership with Kwaku Boafo Nyantekyi-Owusu for oil and gas support services in Ghana.
Shares in John Wood Group were trading up 4.4% at 706 pence per share, leading the FTSE 250 in early trading.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
Copyright © 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Wood Group (J)