Aggreko in boost from World Cup
AGGREKO, the world’s biggest provider of temporary power, again upgraded its outlook for the year after posting a jump in first-half profit, helped by contracts for major sporting events.
Aggreko said events such as the Vancouver Winter Olympics and the soccer World Cup, for which it provided generators and chillers, brought its local business unit £48m in revenues in the first half.
“We believe that we will make further good progress in the second half and the outcome for the year as a whole will be slightly better than our previous expectations,” chairman Philip Rogerson said.
The company, which is supplying cooling and power equipment to people cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on the Louisiana coast, said it also planned to raise the interim and final dividend by 50 per cent each to reflect recent profit growth.
For the six months to the end of June, underlying trading profit rose 23 per cent to £131.2m on revenue up 17 per cent at £585.6m.
Pre-tax profit rose 19 per cent to £127.1m and the interim dividend is being increased to 6.55p.
A poll of analysts taken before yesterday’s results showed a mean estimate of £285m for 2010 pre-tax profit.