Surge in Asian business boosts Ricardo

ENGINEERING consultancy Ricardo, which has a large operation in Leamington Spa, has reported a strong start to its financial year.

In an interim management statement for the period July 1 to date, the firm said its order intake in the first quarter up on the prior year by 8.5%, representing a good mix of business across multiple market sectors, with a particularly strong start to the year in Asia.

Ricardo, whose client list includes the world’s major transportation original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), supply chain organisations, energy companies, financial institutions and governments, said the order book at the end of September was £142m, £21m ahead of the same period last year, and the same as the record level seen at the year-end in June 2014.
 
Significant orders in the period within Technical Consulting include a large commercial vehicle project for a new customer in Asia, further power generation and passenger car work in the UK, and within Performance Products further orders in respect of high performance vehicles and motorsport.
 
“The pipeline is currently strong with a number of multi-year development programmes in the passenger car, commercial vehicle, motorcycle and defence sectors for clients in the UK, Continental Europe, Asia and North America,” it said.
 
The firm recently completed the acquisition of Vepro, a small bolt-on acquisition, to enhance the capability of its Global Motorcycle and Urban Mobility business which is led from Germany.
 
Dave Shemmans, Ricardo’s chief executive officer, said:  “The strong order intake in the final quarter of the last financial year has continued in the summer months and I am particularly pleased with the continued growth in new business from Asia.

“The current pipeline of multi-year programmes is encouraging providing opportunities across all of our main territories. The acquisition in the period, whilst small, will bring important additional skills and capability to our business. We anticipate further bolt-on acquisitions in the near future.
 
“With the good start to the year and the encouraging pipeline, we remain confident of continued progress in the remainder of our current financial year.”