Bodycote outlook unchanged despite Q1 growth
ENGINEERING group Bodycote has said its full year expectations remain unchanged despite revenue in the first quarter seeing a near 4% hike on the same period last year.
The group, which has operations in Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton, said that in the three months to March 31, 2013 revenue was £156.5m, up 3.9% on last year.
It said acquisitions made in 2012 added 8.5% (£12.8m) to group revenue. However, organic revenue (at constant exchange rates) was lower by 5.6% (£8.5m) compared to the first quarter of 2012. Nevertheless, excluding acquisitions, the sales run rate for the group at the end of the first quarter of 2013 was slightly higher than that in the final quarter of 2012.
The group was boosted by the strong Aerospace, Defence & Energy sectors where revenue was higher than in the first quarter of 2012 by 6.5% (5.5% at constant exchange rates) although organic revenue was lower by 0.5%. Aerospace and Defence revenue was higher by 6.2%, almost all of which was attributable to acquisitions.
Growth in the group’s offshore oil and gas business was good, but it said that as anticipated at the time of the 2012 annual results’ announcement, did not completely offset weaker demand for gas exploration and production in North America. Overall, organic revenue in Oil & Gas was down by 5.1% but when acquisitions are included, revenue was ahead 2.3%. Bodycote said the Industrial Gas Turbine market continued the improvement seen in 2012 and revenue was ahead of the same period last year by 17.5%, of which 11.2% was organic.
The Automotive & General Industrial business saw revenue increase by 2.4% (1.4% at constant exchange rates). Organic revenue was lower than in the same period of 2012 by 6.9% but this was more than offset by the benefit of acquisitions completed in 2012. Within this, organic revenue growth from the Car and Light Truck sector specifically was good in nearly all geographies, with 5.8% growth compared to the first quarter of 2012. The growth was helped by further gains in market share. The anticipated weak demand from the Heavy Truck sector together with some softness in General Industrial, however, more than offset the gains from Car and Light Truck.
Net debt as at March 31was £35.6m, compared to net debt of £34.2m at December 31, 2012 and is in line with the usual seasonal pattern.
In a statement ahead of the its AGM, the group said: “Given the performance in the first quarter of 2013, the board’s expectation for modest progress in 2013 is unchanged from the time of the 2012 annual results’ announcement in February.”
