15th Sep 2016 07:59
LONDON (Alliance News) - Ricardo PLC on Thursday reported a strong year-end order book, noting that market conditions remained positive following a year in which it grew pretax profit 44%.
The engineering consultant reported pretax profit of GBP33.0 million for its financial year ended June 30, ahead of the GBP22.9 million posted a year earlier, thanks to revenue growing to GBP332.4 million from GBP257.5 million.
Ricardo said there was good organic growth, as well as the added benefit coming from its two acquisitions completed during the year. These were environmental consultancy Cascade Consulting Holdings Ltd and rail consultant Lloyd's Register Rail, which was purchased from Lloyd's Register Group.
Ricardo said it ended its financial year with an order book of GBP231.0 million, up from GBP140.0 million a year earlier. Of the order book this financial year, GBP66.0 million is in respect of the acquired businesses. On a like-for-like basis, the closing order book has increased by 18% on the prior year.
The company said it was offering a total dividend for the year of 18.10 pence per share, 9.0% ahead of the 16.60p per share paid a year earlier.
Ricardo said market conditions were underpinned by the legislative drivers of its business and clients, and said it was continuing to focus on business as usual in light of the Brexit vote.
The company said it has mainland European operations within its group which will continue to support the EU's research and development programmes and will deliver to its European clients close to their operations as before.
Shares in Ricardo were up 11% at 886.00p on Thursday morning.
By Hannah Boland; [email protected]; @Hannaheboland
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