Share price soars as record revenues bring record dividends under new AVEVA strategy

Source: www.cabume.co.uk

AVEVA chief executive, Richard Longdon

AVEVA has raised its final dividend payment by 14 per cent following record revenue for the year, itself up by 13 per cent.

The computer aided design firm which is currently valued at almost £1.1bn thanks to a major hike in its share price this morning, up 12.5 per cent to £16.66 a share, brought in £195.9m of revenue for the year ended 31 March 2012. Pre-tax profit in the same period increased 16 per cent to £57.7m.

The AVEVA board is recommending a final dividend of 17.0 pence, which combined with the interim payment of 4.0 pence gives a full year dividend of 21.0 pence, an increase of 15 per cent over 2011.

AVEVA reorganised the company into two distinct business lines, Engineering and Design Systems and Enterprise Solutions. Engineering and Design is AVEVA’s core and accounted for 88 per cent of all revenue, up 11 per cent on the previous year.

While outgoing chairman, Nick Prest, said it is Enterprise Solutions which offers significant growth prospects and at £23.5m was up 24 per cent on 2011, AVEVA chief executive, Richard Longdon, said the strategy is for growth across all areas of the company.

The strong close to last year has put AVEVA in a very good position to deliver against our strategy and to continue our focused investment to expand the business in all areas, said Longdon.

Part of this growth will come from acquisitions such as LFM Software for £7.3m in October 2011 and the post-results purchase of Bocad for £14m.

Longdon added that he expected growth in the Oil & Gas industry to continue apace with its expanding presence in Mining while Power was set to provide a solid base of customers continuing to prepare for the growth in Nuclear. Marine, however, was expected to remain slow.

Geographically, AVEVA’s strongest growth has came in the Americas – 24 per cent – and EMEA – 21 per cent and the company reaffirmed its focus on the BRIC companies, with major plans outlined for India. We expect a continued strong performance in Latin America, a return to strong growth in China following the reorganisation and we are continuing to invest in developing a much larger organisation in India, said Longdon.

Against this backdrop, we are confident about the prospects for 2012/13.