Ricardo chairman to step down after next AGM
THE chairman of engineering consultancy Ricardo, Michael Harper, is to step down from the business, the company has said.
Non-executive Harper will retire from the board at the end of the company’s AGM next November.
Harper was first appointed to the board as a non-executive director in June 2003 and became non-executive chairman in November 2009.
Terry Morgan will join the board of Ricardo as a non-executive director and deputy chairman on January 2, 2014 with the intention of succeeding Harper following next year’s AGM.
Morgan is currently the non-executive chairman of Crossrail and the Manufacturing Technology Centre and the National Skills Academy for Railway Engineering. He is also a non-executive director of the Department of Energy and Climate Change and Boxwood Ltd.
The company has also announced that after four years service, David Hall will step down as chair of the remuneration committee following today’s AGM although he will continue as a senior independent director. His replacement on the remuneration committee will be Peter Gilchrist.
The announcements coincided with a trading update ahead of the group’s AGM.
In it, Ricardo said order intake in the first four months of the financial year was up 17% on the same period last year and by 6% excluding Ricardo-AEA, the acquisition of which was completed on November 8, 2012. The order intake included a good geographical mix of business across multiple market sectors, it said.
The order book closed at £128m at the end of October, up 6% on the level at the end of June.
Significant orders in the period included a further contract in respect of monorail transmissions for a second installation in Brazil; a motorcycle project for a customer in Asia; a further Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) order for the US defence sector; and passenger car content in the UK, US and Asia.
Earlier this month the company announced it had been selected to partner with Thailand’s Defence Technology Institute on the development of its Black Widow Spider 8×8 armoured vehicle programme.
The group’s UK business, which includes a research facility in Leamington Spa, is said to have performed well in the period, while the German and US businesses continue to face a challenging market backdrop with performance similar to last year. Ricardo Strategic Consulting and Ricardo-AEA were both said to be performing well and in line with expectations.
Looking ahead, it said order pipeline was strong and included several large opportunities including a European motorcycle programme; further power generation activity in Europe and Asia; two multi-year assembly projects for supercar manufacturers; passenger car, defence and commercial vehicle opportunities in the US and a good number of passenger car programmes in China and Japan.
Dave Shemmans, Chief Executive Officer, said: “The strong order intake of the summer months has continued and we have a good number of large multi-year projects being bid. Performance Products is performing well and Technical Consulting is continuing to win new business, particularly in Asia, although the US and continental Europe order intake remains subdued by our historic standards. This emphasises the benefit of our strategy to be well diversified by sector, geography and product.
“With the good order book and pipeline within both Technical Consulting and Performance Products, we remain confident of continued progress in the half year.”
The group’s interim for the six months to December 31, 2013 will be announced on February 27, 2014.
