Peers are struggling to improve profits, but marine engineer James Fisher (FSJ) had little problem dishing up another serving of double-digit growth last year. Better than expected results were enough to generate both another round of earnings upgrades and a share price break-out above stiff resistance at 1,400p.
Broker N+1 Singer now expects adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 71.3p this year (from 65.6p in 2013), up 6 per cent on its last estimate. Crucially, Fisher has avoided the difficult US market and exploration sector. Instead, it makes money from the booming sub-sea industry, which is served by both the marine support and specialist technical divisions. Demand for saturation diving systems made by Divex, which Fisher bought a year ago, has done better than expected. This is why the specialist technical almost doubled underlying operating profit to £7.6m. It's also sitting on over £60m of orders, and a lot of new dive support vessels about to be built will want Divex kit, too.