Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V. has just announced its full year results for 2015.
The company achieved net profit of EUR 440 million in 2015 (2014: EUR 490 million). Revenue rose by 2.3 per cent to EUR 3.24 billion (2014: EUR 3.17 billion).
EBITDA amounted to EUR 885 million and the operating result (EBIT) was EUR 563 million (2014 EBITDA: EUR 946 million and EBIT: EUR 652 million).
From an operational perspective the result for 2015 was even better than the 2014 record result, which included a large number of exceptional items of EUR 200 million on balance before taxation.
Dredging & Inland Infra achieved a high fleet utilization rate and good results on projects in progress. The large Suez Canal project, which was completed successfully in 2015, made a significant contribution to both revenue and earnings.
Offshore Energy also had a good year and despite the deteriorated market conditions earnings increased slightly, partly helped by the strong US dollar.
Towage & Salvage saw a decline in the result on balance compared to the previous year, mainly as a result of deconsolidation effects at Towage.
The order book fell to EUR 2,490 million (end-2014: EUR 3,286 million).
Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis:
“ We look back on a very successful year in which we achieved excellent results across the entire business. While the storm was gathering strength outside, we had an exceptionally busy year with many impressive projects. Our fleet, organization and balance sheet put us in an excellent position to weather the storm with reason and consideration and come out of it even stronger. ”
Outlook
In the coming period the general market conditions will be characterized by lower volumes of work and pressure on utilization rates and margins.
At Dredging & Inland Infra the emphasis will be on maintaining utilization rates at responsible levels of project risk. With the current orders in hand a good part of the fleet is utilized for 2016.
The project-based nature of a significant part of the company activities, in addition to the uncertain market conditions, makes it difficult to give a specific quantitative forecast with regard to the 2016 full-year result early on in the year. It is, however, clear that net profit will be substantially lower than the very strong 2015 result.
Capital expenditure in 2016 is expected to be approximately EUR 200 million, excluding acquisitions, and will be financed from the company’s own cash flow.