10 Mar 2011 |
Grontmij full year results 2010
Reflecting difficult trading conditions and transformational year.
- Total Revenue +15% € 922 million (2009: € 800 million)
- Unerlying EBITA +4.1% € 46.5 million (2009: € 44.7 million)
- Underlying EBITA margin 5.0% (2009: 5.6%)
- Profit after tax € 17.3 million (2009: € 20.4 million)
- Including non recurring items and results from EAI of together € (8.3) million (2009: € (3.7) million)
- Earnings per share € 0.87 (2009: € 1.14)
- Proposed dividend € 0.50 per share payable in stock or cash (2009: € 1.00) reflecting payout ratio of 61% (2009: 88%; 2008: 53%)
- Continued recovery in fourth quarter
Sylvo Thijsen, CEO Grontmij N.V.: ‘Looking back on 2010, Grontmij experienced a difficult and transformational year. Group performance in 2010 was characterised by difficult trading conditions especially in the UK, Denmark and Sweden. In the first half of the year, demand lagged far behind our expectations due to rapid governmental spending reductions in these countries. The impact is reflected in the 2010 bottom line. We continued to adapt our resource base to lower levels of activities. This resulted in significant restructuring costs. However diversification of activities – Planning & Design, Transportation & Mobility and Water & Energy – across segments and markets in Europe and around the world gives us added resilience to fluctuations and uncertainties. By the end of the first half of the year, we were starting to see some stabilisation of forward order books, especially in our growth segments of transportation and water. However, conditions for local markets in Planning & Design in Denmark and the Netherlands continued to be very challenging. Many of the major, long-term projects that had been postponed in the previous year did not materialise as – often government imposed - spending reductions kicked in at local levels. In response to the ongoing challenge in markets, we have taken firm action to position the business for growth in profitability and scale into the future. We transformed the organisational focus from regions to business lines.
In June we acquired the listed Ginger Groupe in Paris. Ginger brings us a market- leading position with its Monitoring & Testing service and lifecycle/asset management expertise. France is one of Europe’s biggest markets for our services. Furthermore, it also increases our scale significantly as it operates and has a considerable international customer base across Europe. We see the transaction as further evidence of our commitment to seize opportunity when presented and achieve our long-term targets to become a regional European player. The Group Executive Committee was reinforced by Mr. J.L. Schnoebelen, the founder and CEO of Ginger.
During the fourth quarter of 2010 we continued to see strengthening market conditions in our pan-European Transportation & Mobility, Water & Energy and Monitoring & Testing business lines. The recovery in the Nordic region continued, and we saw the successful delivery of cost reductions in the Benelux region. In the UK, there was some pick up in work for the AMP5 water framework contracts. We expect this trend to continue in 2011, but are still cautious about our UK and Netherlands markets where Government austerity measures will have an effect going forward.
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