6th Oct 2014 07:27
LONDON (Alliance News) - Waterman Group PLC Monday said it is on track to deliver it target of tripling adjusted pretax profit before tax over three years, after it reported a 27% increase for its last financial year driven by 19% growth in UK revenue.
In a statement, the engineering and environmental consultancy said its pretax profit excluding exceptional items and amortisation of acquired intangible assets rose to GBP1.4 million, from GBP1.1 million. Its pretax profit including those items rose to GBP810,000, from GBP0.4 million, as revenue rose to GBP68.8 million, from GBP66.8 million. The previous year's pretax profit includes a GBP0.5 million loss from operations it has since discontinued.
It doubled its total dividend for the year to 1.00 pence as a result, from 0.50 pence a year earlier.
Net cash rose 45% to GBP1.6 million, from GBP1.1 million, while return on capital employed rose to 11.4%, from 7.6%.
The company has been going through a revamp after being hit hard by the economic downturn, pulling out of markets abroad where it can't turn an adequate short-term return, and bolstering its UK operations, where it now makes about 87% of its revenue. It will also retain its Australian, Irish and Polish operations. It pulled out of United Arab Emirates in July last year and out of Russia in January. Meanwhile, it hired an extra 196 people in the UK.
Its targets are to triple adjusted pretax profit over the three years to June 2016 and to generate a return on capital employed of 20%.
"The UK is our core market, this generates 87% of our revenue and is continuing to grow. Overseas, our operations in Australia and Ireland are experiencing an improving trading environment," it said in a statement.
Its order book grew 14% over the year to GBP120 million, driven by improving demand in the UK property sector.
The company's civil and transportation business is its main issue, with operational losses increasing during the year. Waterman started to take action to improve the unit last December, with new management re-organising the unit and cutting costs.
"The key objective for the next twelve months is to improve the performance of our Civil and Transportation business. The actions we have taken so far together with improving UK regional markets are anticipated to make significant improvements in our overall performance," it said.
Still, Waterman shares were down 1.6% at 55.13 pence early Monday.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @stevemcgrath1
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