Aggreko expects higher profits in 2011

27th Apr 2011 08:13

Temporary power supplier Aggreko expects its full year profits to be slightly ahead of 2010 after a strong start to the year.The prediction comes in spite of Aggreko's expectation that movements in the US dollar will reduce full year profits by about £7.5m.Group revenues excluding the impact from major events such as the football World Cup were up by 9% from the same period a year ago.Revenues from the International Power Projects business were up by 19%. "Order intake in the first quarter of 280 MW was very encouraging, with notable orders signed in the Bahamas, Argentina, Oman and Indonesia; in addition, as previously announced, we recently signed a Letter of Intent with Tokyo Electric Power Company for the supply of 200 MW of emergency power for a minimum period of a year," the company said.Local business revenues were up by 18% on an underlying basis, with North America and Australia seeing strong growth.Aggreko also reported that chairman Philip Rogerson will announce at today's AGM that he is to step down from the board in 12 months' time. He will be replaced by Ken Hanna, who joined the board last year. "The strong start seen in the Local business is encouraging, but as always the performance for the year as a whole will be heavily dependent on trading during the summer months," Aggreko said. "Despite political instability in a number of our markets, International Power Projects has also had a good first quarter."The strong order intake in recent months and a healthy pipeline of enquiries has prompted the company to make plans to increase the rate of our fleet capital expenditure in the second half by about £70m, and to spend around £390m across the group as a whole during 2011.