A strong pipeline of new orders has given Bath-headquartered specialist manufacturer Rotork a positive outlook for the rest of this year.
The firm, which designs and makes high-quality flow control equipment for the global oil, gas, water and power industries, said revenue growth during the past three months was in the ‘mid-teens’ against the same period last year.
This reflected the strength of the order book at the start of the quarter and an improved supply chain performance, it said in a trading update to the London Stock Exchange.
The group spent most of last year recovering from worldwide supply chain bottlenecks, including a major shortage of microchips and semi-finished components such as circuit boards caused by pandemic-related lockdowns.
Now, with these issues behind it Rotork, which employs about 3,200 people, said it sees a brighter future.
While sales in its oil & gas and water & power divisions were well ahead for the period to 29 March, those for its chemical, process & industrial operations were modestly lower.
Revenue growth was driven by the Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific regions.
All divisions achieved higher orders year-on-year while its book-to-bill figure – the ratio of orders received to units shipped and billed – had returned to the more typical levels experienced in first quarter periods before the Covid-linked supply chain issues.
The trading update said: “The outlook for our end markets remains positive and our order book gives us good visibility into the second half of the year.
“Our full-year expectations are unchanged and we continue to anticipate 2024 to be another year of progress.”
Rotork, which has manufacturing facilities in 16 locations and serves 170 countries, will publish half-year results on 6 August.
