Contract wins cheer Hampson
Article Date: Apr 03 2009Aerospace and engineering group Hampson Industries claims a strong annual trading performance and has recently won £22 million of new orders.
The fully listed company, which supplies aerospace components including light fuel-saving ‘composite’ materials, is losing money in its automotive business, but says a good performance in tooling is offsetting the impact of these losses, helped by the recent strength of the US dollar, according to a trading statement issued today. Acquisitive Hampson, which followed a 48 per cent pre-tax profit increase to £9.2 million in the year to March 2008 with a 149 per cent interim pre-tax profit gain to £12.5 million, says it expects ‘to report a strong overall trading performance for the full year’ to last month.
The company says its 2008-09 results will reflect non-cash impairment charges of £28 million, of which £21 million reflects the abrupt ending of the Eclipse500 light jet aircraft as Eclipse Aviation went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and then liquidation. Against this, however, Hampson expects a net gain of £50 million on translating dollar-denominated assets into sterling.
Since February, the company says its composites and transparencies businesses have won a two-year contract, worth more than £10.6 million, for design engineering and wing assembly tooling for ‘a major US military aerospace programme’ and four contracts, together worth more than £11.4 million, to supply advanced high-temperature components for US military and fighter engine programmes.
Chief executive Kim Ward declares that these contract wins ‘underpin the confidence we have in our strategy to develop world-leading positions in both advanced composite structures and specialist tooling systems’. Hampson shares, which fell from 207p to 78.5p between autumn 2007 and last month, have now bounced to 95.5p, valuing the company at £151 million.
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