Ultra Electronics Holdings PLC Annual General Meeting Trading Update (3000M)

TIDMULE

RNS Number : 3000M

Ultra Electronics Holdings PLC

27 April 2018

27 April 2018

Ultra Electronics Holdings plc

("Ultra" or "the Group")

Annual General Meeting Trading Update

Ultra, the international defence, security, transport and energy company, today holds its Annual General Meeting at 10.00 a.m. and provides the following trading commentary.

As previously disclosed, the Board's expectations remain for the Group to make modest progress in underlying revenue and operating profit at constant currencies in 2018 after investing for the future through increased R&D and capital expenditure. As guided, the Group's trading and cash performance will be more heavily weighted to the second half of the year.

Conditions in Ultra's markets have remained as noted on 5 March 2018 in the 2017 preliminary results announcement. A Continuing Resolution to US Federal funding was in place for most of the first quarter of the year until the US budget was signed on 23 March 2018.

The Group secured a higher volume of orders in the first quarter compared to recent years and this resulted in an improved order book of GBP933m at the end of March 2018 compared to GBP914m at the start of the year, despite a foreign exchange headwind.

As part of the buyback announced on 5 March 2018, the Group has, as at close of business on 24 April 2018, purchased for cancellation 2,963,676 shares at a total cost of GBP41.1m.

Ultra will announce its interim results on 6 August 2018.

- Ends -

Enquiries:

Douglas Caster, Executive Chairman 020 8813 4307

Amitabh Sharma, Group Finance Director

Susan McErlain, Corporate Affairs Director 07836 522 722

James White, MHP Communications 020 3128 8756

www.ultra-electronics.com

Further information about Ultra:

Ultra Electronics is an internationally successful defence, security, transport and energy company with a long track record of development and growth. The Group manages a portfolio of specialist capabilities generating innovative solutions to customer needs. Ultra applies electronic and software technologies in demanding and critical environments ranging from military applications, through safety-critical devices in aircraft, to nuclear controls and sensor measurement. These capabilities have seen the Group's highly-differentiated products contributing to a large number of platforms and programmes.

Ultra has world-leading positions in many of its specialist capabilities and, as an independent, non-threatening partner, is able to support all of the main prime contractors in its sectors. As a result of such positioning, Ultra's systems, equipment or services are often mission or safety-critical to the successful operation of the platform to which they contribute. In turn, this mission-criticality secures Ultra's positions for the long-term which underpins the superior financial performance of the Group.

Ultra offers support to its customers through the design, delivery and support phases of a programme. Ultra businesses have a high degree of operational autonomy where the local management teams are empowered to devise and implement competitive strategies that reflect their expertise in their specific niches. The Group has a small head office and executive team that provide to the individual businesses the same agile, responsive support that they provide to customers, as well as formulating Ultra's overarching, corporate strategy.

Across the Group's three divisions, Ultra operates in the following eight market segments:

 
                              *    Land 
        *    Aerospace 
                              *    Maritime 
        *    Communications 
                              *    Nuclear 
        *    C2ISR 
 
        *    Infrastructure          *    Underwater Warfare 
 

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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April 27, 2018 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT)