(Alliance News) - Aggreko PLC on Monday posted a loss for 2020 but declared a final dividend, looking to the year ahead with optimism.
Revenue for 2020 amounted to GBP1.37 billion, down 15% from GBP1.61 billion in 2019. Aggreko - a supplier of temporary power generation and temperature control equipment - swung to a pretax loss of GBP73 million from a profit of GBP199 million the year before.
The fall into loss was due mostly to GBP175 million in exceptional costs taken against 2020, resulting from an impairment review carried out during the year. Stripping this out, the company noted that underlying pretax profit of GBP102 million was slightly ahead of initial guidance of GBP80 million to GBP100 million.
Rental Solutions underlying revenue for 2020 was GBP693 million, down 16%, with underlying operating profit of GBP102 million, down 22%, with Covid-19 and a lower oil price hitting key customer sectors, such as oil and gas, petrochemical and refining and events.
Power Solutions Industrial underlying operating profit of GBP18 million was down 70%, reflecting the "challenging trading environment in Eurasia and the Middle East". Power Solutions Utility underlying operating profit fell 60% to GBP13 million due to off-hires, planned repricing on the Ivory Coast contract, and delays in mobilising secured contracts due to Covid-19.
Nonetheless, the FTSE 250 constituent said it is encouraged by the recovery it is seeing in its markets, despite wider macro uncertainty.
"The positive momentum we have experienced in early trading, together with the work to date on our strategic initiatives, underpins our confidence in making progress in 2021, notwithstanding the recent strengthening of sterling," said Agrekko.
Reflecting this positive outlook, together with the group's "financial strength", the board has proposed a final dividend for 2020 of 10 pence per share. This brings the full-year payout to 15.00p, versus just an interim dividend of 9.38p paid out for 2019.
Shares in Aggreko were up 0.1% at 800.50p in London early Monday.
By Lucy Heming; lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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