Engineering giant Babcock said the firm had started the new financial year strongly, as continuing economic strife continues to create opportunities for it to take on outsourced work.
It told investors gathering for the group’s annual meeting that the continuing turmoil continued to create long-term openings, with trading in the first quarter solidly in line with already-outlined expectations for strong growth this year.
The group, which directly employs around 1,700 people in Fife, counts the Ministry of Defence as its largest single customer.
It is a key plank of the consortium piecing together the 65,000-tonne HMS Queen Elizabeth supercarrier at its main Scottish base at Rosyth ahead of a 2016 launch.
It said the outlook in its markets remained positive.
“Against this backdrop we are well positioned to benefit through our business model, the scale of our operations, the depth and breadth of our experience and our track record of delivering operational and financial efficiencies for our customers,” the company added.
“With excellent visibility of future revenue from the strong order book and bid pipeline, the board is confident that the group will continue to make further strong progress.”
Babcock said all business units traded well, and had maintained the high activity levels of the previous quarter.
Its order book remained stable at £12 billion, while 80% of this year’s anticipated revenue is already contracted. The bid pipeline was stable at £15.5bn.
In May, Babcock which also trains Asdsa’s apprentices and maintains the fleet of the London Fire Brigade reported revenues of just over £3bn during the year to the end of March, with pre-tax profits climbing by almost a third to £224.6 million in the period.