Senior gets year off to a good start

Engineering firm Senior traded slightly ahead of its expectations in the first quarter, as overall trading conditions remained positive in its Aerospace and Flexonics divisions.

"Senior has started the year strongly, slightly ahead of expectations, and the outlook for Senior's markets remains consistent with the overall positive view described in its February 27th preliminary results announcement," the firm said.

Despite the good start to the year, management is not counting its chickens and, more to the point, neither is it making any changes to full year underlying profit before tax guidance, as it is wary of the potential for future volatility in the group's land vehicle markets.

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In the Aerospace Division, which accounted for 60% of 2011 group sales, production of large commercial aircraft, the group's most important market, increased at the anticipated healthy rate.

Boeing and Airbus delivered 20% more aircraft in the first three months of 2012 than in the same period of 2011. The combined net order in-take for Boeing and Airbus was well ahead of deliveries in the first quarter, with Boeing booking orders for over 300 of their newly launched 737-MAX. Consequently, their combined order book at the end of March, of 8,441 aircraft, now represents an eight-year order book for Senior at current build rates.

Elsewhere in the Aerospace Division, build rates for the group's main defence programmes remained vibrant, while volumes in the regional and business jet markets saw Brazil's Embraer deliver more regional jets than Canada's Bombardier, as expected.

The Flexonics Division, which accounted for the remaining 40% of 2011 group sales, performed well in the period. In land vehicle markets, increased volumes of products for North American heavy trucks and improved manufacturing efficiencies more than offset the effect of a continued softening in demand for non-premium passenger vehicles in Europe and Brazil.

The group's principal industrial operations performed broadly as anticipated in the first quarter with the solid order book of the group's key expansion joint business in Texas helping to underpin the anticipated performance of the division for the remainder of 2012.

Net debt at the end of March was at a similar level to that at the start of the year.

The share price rose 3.44% to 210.40p by 09:09.

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