QinetiQ's (QQ.) orders surged more than a third against its previous half-year, while the defence engineer’s total funded order backlog climbed 64 per cent to £3bn. More than a quarter of the group’s order increase was organic, even after QinetiQ excluded its new long-term partnership with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), which it signed in April 2019.
The engineering group earned a £19m contract through this agreement to lower the electromagnetic and acoustic signatures of the Royal Navy's submarines and ships. Its most intriguing source of growth is the international operation, which is thriving. Along with growing orders from the Australian military, QinetiQ agreed to acquire US sensing solutions specialist MTEQ for $105m (£80.5m) in October, in a deal that will more than double its US presence. Overall international orders grew by more than half on an organic basis. The QinetiQ Target Systems business, which provides unmanned targets for weapons training and testing, doubled orders and boosted its revenue by 50 per cent.
Bloomberg consensus points to full-year adjusted 2020 earnings per share of 19.1p, rising to 20.6p in 2020.
| QINETIQ (QQ.) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 339p | MARKET VALUE: | £1.9bn | |
| TOUCH: | 338-339p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 341p | LOW: 265p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.0% | PE RATIO: | 15 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 150p* | NET CASH: | £173.5m | |
| Half-year to 30 Sep | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2018 | 420 | 52.7 | 8.9 | 2.1 |
| 2019 | 487 | 71.3 | 11.0 | 2.2 |
| % change | +16 | +35 | +24 | +5 |
| Ex-div: | 9 Jan | |||
| Payment: | 7 Feb | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £242.3m, or 43p a share | ||||
