ATK.L Regulatory News (ATK)

Atkins trading in line with expectations

WS Atkins plc ("Atkins" or the "Group"), the design, engineering and project management consultancy, today provides its third quarter trading update for the period from 1 October 2014 to date.

Group performance

The Group continues to trade in line with our expectations and our outlook for the full year remains unchanged.

United Kingdom and Europe

The performance of our UK business continues to be mixed. We have made some progress in the resolution of the contract variations in our rail business and have right sized our aerospace business to reflect current market opportunities. Our highways and design and engineering businesses have both traded well in the period, reflecting healthy UK infrastructure markets. Overall, we expect to achieve an improved operating margin through the second half of the year.

North America

Our North American business has maintained its focus on operational excellence, with its new operating model now fully established. We expect the region's second half revenue to reflect overall market conditions that remain relatively flat and, as previously stated, we continue to anticipate year on year margin improvement in our consultancy business.

Middle East

Our strong first half performance has continued and we remain busy delivering a number of significant projects, including Riyadh metro and two lines on the Doha metro programme. Looking forward, we continue to see a good pipeline of work across our focus sectors of rail, infrastructure and property to support the business in the year ahead.

Asia Pacific

The Asia Pacific region has traded in line with our expectations in the period, despite a slowdown in our markets in mainland China. Our strategy of geographic diversification continues and, in particular, we are making good progress in developing our relationships with Chinese contractors as they seek to grow outside their domestic market.

Energy

Our oil and gas, nuclear and power businesses have continued to perform well through the second half. We have recently started to mobilise resources on our SDP (Silos Direct Encapsulation) contract at Sellafield, in the UK, which will drive future growth in our nuclear business. The integration of our two recent acquisitions in North America, Nuclear Safety Associates and Houston Offshore Engineering, is progressing well.

While our oil and gas business is as much operating expenditure as capital expenditure focused, we continue to monitor the trading environment closely given the impact of a lower oil price on our clients' spending levels.

Balance sheet

The Group's financial position remains strong. We expect to report net funds of around £135m at 31 March 2015, after reflecting the consideration for the acquisitions of both Houston Offshore Engineering and Terramar, a 62 person consultancy in Norway, completed since the half year.

During the period we have received support from our lenders to amend our £200m revolving credit facility to take advantage of current market conditions. In addition, the facility has been extended to a new maturity date of January 2020.

Outlook

The Group continues to trade in line with our expectations and our outlook for the full year remains unchanged.

The Group will publish a pre close trading update on 8 April 2015.

Ends

Enquiries

1. Notes to editors

Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com) is one of the world's leading design, engineering and project management consultancies*, employing some 18,000 people across the UK, North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Europe. Our people's breadth and depth of expertise and drive to ask why has allowed us to plan, design and enable some of the world's most complex and time critical projects.

*15th largest global design firm (Engineering News-Record 2014) and the third largest multidisciplinary consultancy in Europe (Svensk Teknik och Design 2013).

2. Analyst Conference Call

A conference call for analysts will be held at 0800 hours today. Dial-in details are available on +44 (0) 207 121 2693.

3. Cautionary Statement

This announcement has been prepared for the shareholders of Atkins as a whole and its sole purpose and use is to assist shareholders to exercise their governance rights. In particular, this announcement has not been audited or otherwise independently verified and no warranty is given as to its accuracy or completeness (other than any such warranty which is mandatorily implied by statute). Atkins and its directors and employees are not responsible for any other purpose or use or to any other person in relation to this announcement and their responsibility to shareholders shall be limited to that which is imposed by statute.

This announcement contains indications of likely future developments and other forward looking statements that are subject to risk factors associated with, among other things, the economic and business circumstances occurring from time to time in the countries, sectors and business segments in which the Group operates. These and other factors could adversely affect the Group's results, strategy and prospects. Forward looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. They relate to events and/or depend on circumstances in the future which could cause actual results and outcomes to differ materially from those currently expected. No obligation is assumed to update any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.