AVEVA says trading remains strong; confirms 3 for 1 share split
Cambridge-headquartered engineering software house AVEVA Group plc (AVV.L) said today it was continuing to trade strongly after its record performance in the most recent financial year.
Chairman Nick Prest (pictured) told shareholders at the Annual General Meeting in Cambridge that "Last year AVEVA made excellent progress with good growth in all of our regions delivering record sales, profits and cash generation.
"Since the announcement of our preliminary results on 18 May, I am pleased to report that that the Company continues to trade strongly".
Shareholders also approved the 3 for 1 split of the Group's ordinary shares
AVEVA, founded in 1967, is one of the world's foremost and fastest-growing lifecycle engineering IT solutions and services providers to the oil and gas, paper and pulp, power, chemical, pharmaceutical and shipbuilding industries. It has around 1500 clients, many world leaders in their own industries.
Market unmoved
The company's share price was virtually unchanged on the news, slipping less than one per cent to 1045p, before the split. The share price enjoyed steady growth until 11 May, when it reached 1270p. It got caught up in the market turmoil, slipping to 970p, before recovering over the past month. The company is now worth almost £230m.
Mr Prest said the company was securing good volumes of new contracts. This has included so far this year the award of contracts by a consortium of power design institutes in China to supply software worth $2.8m and by J. Ray McDermott, a leading worldwide energy services company, to use VANTAGE Project Resource Management to streamline global procurement and materials management processes.
"Our success continues to be driven by our leadership positions in high growth marine, oil and gas and power sectors, where we have long-term partnerships with blue chip customers," he said.
The Board remains confident that AVEVA will deliver another year of good growth.
In the year to end March, AVEVA made a pre-tax profit of £11.2m on revenues of £66m. Consensus market forecasts are for revenue to grow 11% to £73m, while profit before tax is expected to jump by 28.5% to £15.4m, in the current financial year.
The share split, or reorganisation, as it calls it, took effect from midday today. Dealing in the new shares is expected to start on Monday morning.
14th July 2006
