Ricardo roars into fast lane with record order book

One of Britain’s growing engineering skills exporters, Ricardo, today showed why its leadership in everything from Formula 1 cars to railways has made it a winner.

Full-year profits jumped 41% to 37.7 million on revenues up 29% at £332 million and it ended the year in June with a record order book — up 18%, at £231 million.

“Our strategy to build long-term, multi-year contracts and relationships has been supported by the further expansion of the McLaren engine-assembly line, by a high-profile transmission supply contract and through multi-year projects secured within the Environmental and Technical Consulting parts of the business,” said chief executive David Shemmans.

Shares shot up 92.3p, or 12%, to a six-month high of 887.8p.

Supplying transmissions to high-performance car-makers such as Bugatti, and engines to McLaren, has caused the firm double its engine building capacity in the last year.

It also acquired two consultancies — one in rail and one in the UK water sector.

Shemmans said that June’s Brexit vote had seen Ricardo focus on “business as usual”.

“We have European mainland operations within the group which will continue to support the EU’s R&D programmes and deliver to our European clients close to their operations, as before,” he added.