Ricardo Plc Regulatory News (RCDO)

29 October 2014

Ricardo plc

Interim Management Statement

Ricardo plc ('Ricardo' or 'the Group') is a global, multi-industry environmental and engineering consultancy, with a value chain from strategy and engineering through to niche production. Our client list includes the world's major transportation Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), supply chain organisations, energy companies, financial institutions and governments.

Ricardo is today providing an Interim Management Statement for the period 1 July 2014 to the date of this release. The results for the six month period ending 31 December 2014 will be announced on 27 February 2015.

We have seen a good start to the new financial year with order intake in the first quarter up on the prior year by 8.5%, representing a good mix of business across multiple market sectors, with a particularly strong start to the year in Asia. The order book at the end of September was £142m, £21m ahead of the same period last year, and the same as the record level seen at the year-end in June 2014.

Significant orders in the period within Technical Consulting include a large commercial vehicle project for a new customer in Asia, further power generation and passenger car work in the UK, and within Performance Products further orders in respect of high performance vehicles and motorsport.

The pipeline is currently strong with a number of multi-year development programmes in the passenger car, commercial vehicle, motorcycle and defence sectors for clients in the UK, Continental Europe, Asia and North America.

Ricardo-AEA continues to develop overseas and has been very busy recently bidding on a range of new international opportunities.

Furthermore, we are pleased to announce that we have recently completed the acquisition of Vepro Ltd, a small bolt-on acquisition, to enhance the capability of our Global Motorcycle and Urban Mobility business which is led from Germany. Vepro brings to Ricardo specialist expertise in motorcycle chassis, powertrain integration and prototype build and will contribute circa £1.5m of revenue on a full year basis.

Dave Shemmans, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"The strong order intake in the final quarter of the last financial year has continued in the summer months and I am particularly pleased with the continued growth in new business from Asia. The current pipeline of multi-year programmes is encouraging providing opportunities across all of our main territories. The acquisition in the period, whilst small, will bring important additional skills and capability to our business. We anticipate further bolt-on acquisitions in the near future.

"With the good start to the year and the encouraging pipeline, we remain confident of continued progress in the remainder of our current financial year."

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