2015-16

Annual report 2015/16

Highlights

  • Strong year-end order book at £231m (2015: £140m)
  • Like-for-like order book growth of 18%
  • Order intake of £361m (2015: £252m)
  • Revenue up 29% to £332.4m (2015: £257.5m)
  • Underlying(1) profit before tax up 41% to £37.7m (2015: £26.8m)
  • Underlying(1) basic earnings per share up 30% to 55.2p (2015: 42.4p)
  • Net debt of £34.4m after £48.8m of acquisition-related costs (2015: net funds of £14.3m)
  • Full year dividend up 9% to 18.1p per share (2015: 16.6p)
  • Acquisitions of Lloyd’s Register Rail (‘LR Rail’) and Cascade completed in the financial year; Exnovo completed post year-end; and
  • Outlook remains positive, good platform for further growth

(1)Derived from operating profit which includes income of £5.4m under the Research & Development Expenditure Credit (‘RDEC’) scheme in respect of the current year, but excludes specific adjusting items, which comprise amortisation of acquired intangible assets of £3.4m (2015: £1.3m), acquisition-related expenditure of £2.8m (2015: £2.6m) and non-recurring income of £1.5m for claims under RDEC in respect of prior years. Including specific adjusting items, reported profit before tax was £33.0m (2015: £22.9m) and reported basic earnings per share was 48.6p (2015: 35.6p).