(Alliance News) - John Wood Group PLC on Friday said that 2023 trading was in line with expectations, with contract wins and strong order book expected to drive growth through 2024.
The Aberdeen, Scotland-based engineering and consulting group expects revenue of around USD6 billion for the year ended December 31, up 10% from USD 5.44 billion a year before.
While the group reported growth "across all business units", its projects division saw impressive growth of around 10% to roughly USD2.5 billion, particularly across oil, gas and chemicals. Like-for-like revenue also grew 7% to around USD2.5 billion.
The group reported that adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation were expected "slightly ahead of guidance" at between USD420 million and USD425 million, and an Ebitda margin of over 7%.
As of December 31, the group has an operating cash flow of around USD210 million, up over three-fold from USD66 million in 2022. Net debt stood at around USD680 million, "slightly above" expectations due to delays in customer receipts and adverse foreign exchange rate movements. The group anticipates delivering positive free cash flow in 2024, in line with previous guidance.
John Wood boasted severa; "significant contract wins" in 2023, including for detailed engineering of Woodside Energy Group Ltd's Trion floating production unit in the Gulf of Mexico. It also won a two year contract extension with Brunei Shell Petroleum Co worth around USD250 million.
Looking into 2024, the group estimates its order book value at around USD6.1 billion, which it said will "support our growth expectations for 2024".
Chief Executive Officer Ken Gilmartin said: "We are now one year into our strategic growth journey and our results continue to show clear progress. We have delivered strong revenue and Ebitda growth, improved our underlying cash generation, grown our order book, and continue to see an acceleration in the proportion of sustainable solutions within our pipeline.
"We are confident that our actions, business model and strategy are delivering and look forward to giving a further update in March."
Full year results will be published on March 26.
Shares in John Wood were up 2.8% at 156.70 pence each in London on Friday morning.
By Hugh Cameron, Alliance News reporter
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