Morson’s broad base stands it in good stead

MORSON, the North West manpower services group, said today it would hit City expectations, thanks to the breadth of the industrial sectors it serves.

The AIM-listed, Eccles-based company, which supplies nearly 10,000 temporary white collar workers to sectors such as defence, aerospace, oil and gas, rail and nuclear, said economic picture was “challenging but encouraging”.

Morson, which celebrates its 40th birthday this year, and is run by founder Gerry Mason’s son Ged, will announce results for the full year in late March.

House broker Brewin Dolphin expects profits to rise from £10.8m to £11.6m and turnover to rise from £10.8m to £11.6m.

In a pre-close update today, the company said its figures for 2008 would be “in line with market expectations”, but would include a £1.6m financing cost relating to its currency hedging arrangements.

The statement said: “Morson continues to deliver a consistently strong performance year on year.  The resilience of the group’s business model arises from its  focus on long term framework agreements in a broad spread of sectors.
These include aerospace and defence, nuclear and power and rail. 

“These sectors benefit from a variety of growth drivers that stimulate the demand for services and make Morson less vulnerable to the effects of any one sector.

“The board consider that the outlook to be challenging but encouraging despite the current economic climate and remain confident of the group’s ability to deliver further growth in the medium and long term.”

Morson provides personnel on long term assignments for major projects including the development of the Joint Striker Fighter, rail maintenance and upgrades for Network Rail and Metronet and nuclear design and decommissioning.