Results round-up

Design, engineering and project management consultancy WS Atkins reported a 6% rise in revenue in its final results on Thursday, to £1.86bn.

The FTSE 250 firm posted underlying operating profit of £148.2m, up 10.5%, achieving its 8% margin target at the same time.

Underlying profit before tax was ahead of market expectations at £139m, up 14% on the prior year, with underlying diluted earnings per share ahead by 10.5% at 107.3p.

Atkins said that during the year, there were significant improvements in UK and Europe performance, and two major transportation project wins in North America underpinned workload into the new financial year.

It also saw “strong performance” in the Middle East driven by the Central Planning Office in Qatar and peak delivery on metro projects.

In the Asia Pacific region, Atkins was continuing to pursue outbound investment opportunities with selected Chinese contractors, it said.

Half-year pre tax profits at storage firm Safestore fell 21.1% to £49.1m although the company said early trading in the second half had been encouraging and it was confident that the business would deliver a strong performance for the year as a whole.

Revenues jumped 7.3% to £54.1m , on a like-for-like basis the increase was 10.4%. Safestore's UK revenues were up 11.7% and its Parisian business 6.8% on a constant currency basis.

Occupancy increased 2 percentage points to 70.9%.

Chief executive Frederic Vecchioli said the company would be opening five new stores in the second half “which will enhance our existing strong portfolio” and he also hoped to be able to confirm the addition of a further 12 stores to the portfolio with the completion of the acquisition of Space Maker.