31st Jul 2019 10:19
(Alliance News) - FTSE 250-listed outsourcing firm Serco Group PLC said Wednesday reported profit was hurt one-off charges, but revenue and its order book continued to strengthen.
For the six months ended June, pretax profit narrowed to GBP6.7 million from GBP25.6 million the year prior. This was despite revenue rising to GBP1.48 billion from GBP1.37 billion.
Profit performance was primarily hurt by exceptional charges rising to GBP31.1 million from GBP11.6 million the year before. This was chiefly a result of a GBP24.0 million charge related to UK government reviews and a further GBP5.4 million related to restructuring costs.
Underlying pretax profit - excluding exceptional and other non-underlying items - widened to GBP40.1 million from GBP31.3 million the year prior.
"Following a strong 2018, which marked an inflection point for Serco after several years of decline, we are reporting another good performance in the first half of 2019 with underlying trading profit and margin well up on the first half of last year," Chief Executive Officer Rupert Soames said.
"Order intake so far this year has been very strong at over GBP3 billion, already exceeding our revenue forecast for the whole of 2019," Soames added.
During the six months, order intake stood at GBP3.3 billion. This took Serco's total order book to GBP14.0 billion.
"The strategic advantage of having a strong international footprint shows clearly in these results, with strong revenue growth in North America and Asia Pacific. I am also delighted to see the UK & Europe division reaping the benefit of the Carillion health facilities management acquisition completed in 2018," Soames continued.
Serco did not propose an interim dividend.
"The acquisition of the Naval Systems Business Unit of Alion for USD225 million, will add materially to the scale and capability of our US defence business; having now received all necessary regulatory approvals, we look forward to completing the transaction imminently and to seeing the earnings accretion it will deliver," Soames said.
In May, Serco announced it would buy the Naval Systems Business unit from Alion Science & Technology Corp on a cash and debt-free basis for USD225 million, or GBP173 million.
"We continue to expect our organic growth to accelerate from this year's 4% to around 5% in 2020, as a number of large new contracts become fully operational," Somes added. "As we noted at the beginning of the year, absent unforeseen headwinds or major rebid losses, our recent strong order intake gives us confidence that we will grow faster than our market for at least the next two years."
Shares in Serco were 4.0% higher at 145.40 pence in London on Wednesday.
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