Austal Limited announced it has delivered record revenue and earnings for the year ended 30 June 2015, with net profit after tax of $53.2 million, a 66.8 per cent increase on FY2014.
The company’s best result in its 27-year history was generated from revenue of $1.41 billion, a 26.0 per cent increase on FY2014, achieved from multiple vessel programs, including major navy defence and patrol boat programs for the US Navy, Australian Border Force (formerly Australian Customs and Border Protection), and the Royal Navy of Oman.
The financial result has enabled the board of directors to declare a fully franked final dividend of 3 cents per share, following the resumption of dividends earlier this year with a 1.0 cent per share interim dividend paid in March 2015.
Austal CEO Andrew Bellamy said the result reflected how Austal has evolved in recent years to have the capacity to deliver major defence vessel programs profitably as prime contractor.
“Austal reported record revenue and record earnings by delivering on major vessel programs across our three shipyards in the USA, Australia, and the Philippines,” Bellamy said.
Bellamy cited good performance on Austal’s US Joint High Speed Vessel contract as one reason for the result but also the generation of strong earnings from Australian operations through efficiency improvements on the Cape Class Patrol Boat program.
“This offset the anticipated margin pressure on Littoral Combat Ship 6, which was the result of the lack of design maturity on our first vessel as prime contractor,” he said.
“We generated strong cash flow with $110.4 million in operating cash flow for the year, growing our cash holdings and underpinning the resumption and increase in dividends.”
Bellamy said that with LCS 6 (USS Jackson) now delivered, Austal is applying its experience from that vessel to the remaining nine ships being constructed under the US$3.5 billion contract.
“We expect this to drive further efficiencies and margin growth, similar to the improvement in financial performance on the Joint High Speed Vessel and Cape Class Patrol Boat programs as those contracts matured.”