27 January 2012 – pre-close trading update
The group has confirmed that pre-tax profits for 2011 should be in line with expectations with £4.7m on the cards for earnings per share of around 24p. Recent acquisitions should make a positive contribution to the results in 2012. However, the group has recognised that certain rental assets, originally bought for a now terminated contract in Yemen, have not achieved acceptable levels of utilisation and these may be sold. The group has therefore decided to make a provision to write down the value of the assets to reflect the likely proceeds of such a sale and this will be treated as an exceptional item in 2011. The shares have been marked down a little this morning to reflect this but the group starts the year with a larger higher fleet and greater geographic exposure than this time last year. Contracted rental demand and product sales orders have also increased across the group which is well placed to continue to grow. We continue to rate the shares as a BUY.