The marine and offshore business of French classification society Bureau Veritas showed strong revenue and profit growth in the first quarter of 2015.
Adjusted operating profit jumped 36% year on year to EUR54.7 million (USD61.4 million), while revenues kept pace with 34% growth to EUR202.2 million.
Revenue growth was helped by acquisitions, which accounted for 15% of growth and currency variations, which added a further 7.7%, while pure organic growth was up 11.7%.
Bureau Veritas said that marine and offshore revenue growth, which was the highest among all the group’s business sectors, had benefited from a surge in equipment certification in the newbuilding segment and market share gains in the vessels-in-service segment.
Chief executive Didier Michaud-Daniel said that the performance of the group’s marine and offshore business had been “excellent”. Along with recovery in Europe, it had enabled the group to deliver solid revenue growth and robust profit margins.
Overall, group revenues rose 17.9% year on year to EUR2.32 billion in the first half and 9% on a constant exchange rate basis. Attributable adjusted net profits increased 12.5% to EUR200.3 million but would have dipped 3.5% at constant exchange rates.
The group said that growth in the second half would be less dynamic, taking account of the global economic slowdown and the drop in oil prices. It said that it nevertheless expected a higher organic growth rate and a further improvement in operating margin.
This post was sourced from IHS Maritime 360: View the original article here.