Ultra Electronics post bullish annual update, as dividend is lifted

Ultra Electronics Holdings PLC (LON:ULE) have reported an impressive set of fundamentals from their annual results.

The firm saw a pretax profit total of £91 million – a notable rise from £42.6 million recorded a year ago.

Ultra Electronics also added that revenues spiked 7.7% to £825.4 million from £766.7 million.

The FTSE 250 listed firm said that its’ current order book stood at £1.02 billion – seeing a 4% jump from the 2018 figure of £983.9 million.

Following the strong results, Ultra Electronic raised their dividend by 5% to 54.2p from 51.6p.

Simon Pryce, Chief Executive, commented:

“2019 was a busy year for Ultra, and one in which we made great progress. We defined our ONE Ultra strategy and started our Focus; Fix; Grow transformation journey, made good progress on a number of our change initiatives and continued to identify longer term opportunities for enhanced growth and improved efficiency. At the same time, we delivered a good set of outcomes for our stakeholders.

We enter 2020 with an enhanced, engaged and motivated team and a strong order book. In addition to focussing on improved delivery, we will be accelerating investment in internal R&D and underlying IT infrastructure as well as process standardisation and excellence.

We remain excited about the significant opportunity within Ultra to accelerate growth, improve delivery and generate exceptional value for all our stakeholders over time. We are increasingly confident in our ability to deliver it. ”

Ultra Electronics deliver on expectations

In November, the firm told shareholders that its’ trading was set to meet expectations and was on track with company targets.

The defense engineering company said for the nine months to September 30 there had been good order book development, as anticipated.

Ultra’s order book rose above the £1 billion mark for the first time since 2011 at the half year stage in June.

In November, Ultra’s Ocean Systems business won a potential $100.9 million contract to design, develop, test and integrate a radar software management platform intended for the US Navy’s new and in-service submarines.

Numis forecasted Ultra to deliver £104.1 million of pre-tax profit for the full year to 31 December 2019, £824 million revenue.

The analysts estimate pre-tax profit to grow to more than £115 million by 2021 showing significant strides after volatile 2019 trading year – and these targets have comfortably been met.

Shares in Ultra Electronics trade at 2,046p (-1.06%). 11/3/20 14:31BST.

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