Amec Foster Wheeler posts pre-tax loss of £235m

Cheshire-headquartered engineering giant Amec Foster Wheeler has posted a nine-figure loss for the year ending December 31.

Despite seeing its overall revenue leap by 37% to reach £5.45bn, the Knutsford firm made a pre-tax loss of £235m in 2015, in comparison to a profit before tax of £155m at the same point the year previous.

Despite the figures, Amec Foster Wheeler has confidence for the coming 12 months as its order book now has a value of £6.6bn, a year-on year increase of 4%.

Across the firm’s global operations, the Americas continued to deliver the highest revenue, at £2.64bn. A total of £1.49bn was generated from Northern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, while the Asia, Middle East, Africa and Southern Europe regions produced a revenue of £1.05bn for Amec Foster Wheeler.

Of the three core regions, only the latter saw revenue growth (at 2%) in 2015.

The company’s CFO and interim CEO, Ian McHoul, said: “Our 2015 trading performance was in line with our November update.

“We expect the challenging market conditions to continue for the foreseeable future and our priorities remain the same.”

Amec Foster Wheeler’s focus, Mr McHoul explained, will be to maintain its operational performance by driving its cost-reduction and efficiency programmes.

He continued: “We are also making good progress with our portfolio review, and have identified a number of non-core assets, including GPG (Global Power Group), which we intend to sell over the next 15 months.

“We are targeting to halve our net debt over this timeframe, from disposal proceeds together with the cash generated from our core businesses.”

Last month, Amec Foster Wheeler secured a contract worth £130m with the US Army.

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