RE: Priced for bust29 Nov 2024 19:21
Thomson Engineering Design Ltd ("TED")
As mentioned in my Chairman's statement last year, Network Rail's CP6 funding round ended in March 2024 and the new round, CP7, started in April 2024. Network Rail has announced that it has a budget spend of £44 billion over the next five years so there is now a degree of budget certainty amongst suppliers and contractors to Network Rail. As a result, TED's business was slow at the start of the Financial Year up to the point that CP6 finished, but UK orders picked up significantly in the last quarter of the Financial Year at the start of CP7, and have continued into the first quarter of the Current Financial Year. We expect this growth to continue for the next four years as Network Rail looks for innovative solutions to make the most cost-effective use of its budget in maintaining and upgrading the UK's rail infrastructure, both for work on Network Rail's infrastructure and for Eurotunnel.
The TED and Unipart Rail Limited ("Unipart") partnership continues to strengthen as Unipart gains market presence in the rest of the world selling 'Yellow Plant', having exhibited at many shows around the world. The partnership has now received orders from Australia, France, Germany and North America, where large infrastructure projects continue to come to fruition. In addition, the respective regional Unipart sales teams are working hard to ensure that the TED name is embedded in future infrastructure projects enabling the pipeline to continue. Since the memorandum of understanding (the "MoU") was signed with Unipart in September 2022, the total value of orders received from Unipart Rails now in excess of £1 million.
The above developments in the UK market and the global market are seen as very positive for TED over the next few years.