23rd May 2019 08:17
LONDON (Alliance News) - Defence firm QinetiQ Group PLC raised its dividend Thursday after annual revenue grew strongly alongside a healthy order book, whilst underlying profit also edged higher.
Shares in QinetiQ were 8.3% higher at 321.40 pence on Thursday.
For the year ended March, pretax profit narrowed 15% to GBP123.2 million from GBP144.8 million the year prior. This was despite revenue growing 9.4% to GBP911.1 million from GBP833.0 million the year before.
Profit performance was hurt by a one-off GBP22.7 million gain recorded the year prior due to the sale of property and other investments during the year. Underlying pretax profit - excluding one-off items - widened 1.6% to GBP124.0 million from GBP122.1 million the year prior.
"This has been an excellent year with strong operational performance," QinetiQ Chief Executive Officer Steve Wadey said.
During the year, QinetiQ secured GBP776.4 million in new orders compared to GBP587.2 million during the year prior. This helped take its order backlog 56% higher to GBP3.13 billion from GBP2.01 billion the year before.
"By improving our customer focus and competitiveness, we have delivered a third successive year of revenue growth, increased our international revenue share from 21% to 30% over the last three years, offset the UK single source profit headwind and delivered organic profit growth."
QinetiQ proposed a 4.5 pence per share final dividend, up 7.1% from 4.2p the year prior. For the full year, the dividend rose 4.8% to 6.6p from 6.3p the year before.
During the year, the FTSE 250-listed firm also secured a GBP1.3 billion long-term partnering agreement with the UK Ministry of Defence. This is in addition to five other long-term deals in the UK, US and Canada.
"Securing the LTPA amendment and winning five major competitive, long-term programmes demonstrates that our strategy is working, providing a platform for sustainable profitable growth", Wadey added.
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