4th Aug 2020 12:14
(Alliance News) - Keller Group PLC on Tuesday said trade in the EMEA and APAC regions were significantly affected by Covid-19 in the first half with North America showing a slight increase in revenue, but overall revenue was slightly down.
The London-based geo-technical contractor's pretax profit for the half year period ended June 28 remained largely the same to the year prior at GBP20.8 million from GBP21.7 million.
Revenue for the first half dropped 5% year on year sitting at GBP1.04 billion versus GBP1.09 billion a year prior. This reflects the impact of Covid-19 on the company, particularly in the EMEA and APAC regions.
Europe, Middle East & Africa saw its revenue decrease 15% to GBP286.5 million from GBP342.4 million a year prior.
North America actually saw a marginal revenue increase in the half of 2% to GBP636.5 million from GBP611.0 million. This was due to a very good first quarter, ended March 31, thanks to the extreme weather of the year prior not repeating itself this year. Second quarter revenue however was impacted by the likes of Covid-19 which left the company with the slight increase over the half.
The company said: "Our businesses in Continental Europe were those most significantly impacted initially by Covid-19, however, these markets had largely opened up by early second half as lockdown restrictions were progressively lifted."
Accordingly, second half performance in the EMEA region will be dependent on the effects of Covid-19 on the current increasing activity levels.
Asia Pacific revenue decreased 13% to GBP116.1 million from GBP138.3 million a year prior. The company put the region's poor performance down to the closure of waterway businesses during 2019 and the impact of government-enforced site closures due to Covid-19.
Keller said: "Whilst the APAC division has been significantly affected by Covid-19, the restructuring actions of the organisation during 2018 and 2019 enabled resilience in responding to the pandemic."
Payment of an interim dividend will be considered by the company later on in the year. Last year's interim dividend was 12.6 pence per share.
The company said its order book supports trading through much of the second half of this year and, assuming no further material lockdowns, anticipates delivering a resilient full year result, albeit without the typical second half weighting.
Keller does however recognise the importance of dividends to its shareholders and decided it will would be both "prudent and appropriate" to maintain the 2019 full year dividend at the prior year's level of 35.9 pence per share, to be paid on August 21, as announced June 16.
Chief Executive Michael Speakman said: "The late cycle nature of our business makes us naturally cautious about the short-term economic outlook and we are proactively managing the business accordingly.
"The long-term fundamentals for Keller continue to be strong and we remain optimistic about the future trading prospects and strategic opportunities for the group."
Keller shares were up 1.4% at 574.00 pence on Tuesday midday in London.
By Greg Roxburgh; [email protected]
Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Keller