RWS shares slump on profit forecast at lower end of guidance

Shares in language and intellectual-property support services provider RWS slumped on Wednesday after the company said it expected 2022 results to be at the lower end of expectations.

A company-compiled analysts' range of expectations is for revenue to be between £744.8m - £770.7m and adjusted pre-tax profit of £131.5m-£144.8m.

“We are seeing further weakness in IP Services' performance as a result of the recent update from the European Patent Office, which allows clients to delay the granting of patent applications in order to benefit from protection under the Unitary Patent, which is expected to come in to effect in the second half of 2022,” the company said.

“We expect revenue growth from Language Services to be slightly moderated, maintaining the growth seen in FY 2021, as a direct result of reducing our expectations for translations into Russian.”

RWS also said that it was supporting its employees in Ukraine, where is has 55 staff at an office in the capital Kyiv, which it has closed after the Russian invasion of the country.

It added that it expected to see reduced demand from non-Russian companies for translations into Russian, but was supporting non-Russian clients in-line with contractual commitments.