Ultra Electronics full year underpinned by contract wins

(Sharecast News) - Defence contractor Ultra Electronics reported a jump in full-year profit and revenue on Tuesday as it won a number of new contracts.
In the year to 31 December 2020, statutory pre-tax profit rose 14% to £103.7m, with revenues up 4.2% at £859.8m. The order book grew 4% to £1.06bn.

Ultra declared a total dividend of 56.9p a share, up 5% compared to 2019.

The company won several new contracts during the year, including one with the US National Guard Bureau for joint interface control cell extended trainer solutions and a development and production award for Nixie torpedo countermeasures, potentially worth over $250m.

Ultra said defence spending in its core 'five-eyes' markets remained robust and it continued to outperform, delivering 5.9% organic order book growth.

Chief executive Simon Pryce said: "Through the extraordinary efforts of the whole Ultra team, we made good strategic progress and achieved our third consecutive year of strong organic growth. We made good progress on our ONE Ultra transformation and, as a result, we delivered or exceeded most of our stakeholder objectives. These would have been excellent outcomes in any year, but against a background of pandemic-driven disruption and turmoil, it was an exceptional performance."

Pryce said Ultra had entered 2021 with a record order book. Based on this, the group is planning for continued revenue growth in 2021, although it does not expect to see any improvement in commercial aerospace revenue until at least 2023.