Shares in Bath global oil and gas engineering group Rotork tumbled yesterday after it warned that “challenging” market conditions would hit its annual profits.
In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, the specialist valves and flow control equipment manufacturer said the trading environment in the second half had been challenging across most of its key markets and geographies.
That triggered a fall of more than 16% in Rotork shares in early trading, although they regained some ground later in the day. Its shares continued to be under pressure today, falling a further 4%-plus this morning. 
Last month it reported a 8.4% fall in pre-tax profits for the six months to June 30 to £56.3m on revenues down by 1.6% to £274.2m, blaming the continued weakness of the oil price and geopolitical uncertainty in some of its key oil and gas markets.
The group said it had seen an increased number of project deferrals and cancellations, with trading in August particularly weak.
It said: “We continue to see an encouraging level of quote activity and a large pipeline of opportunities. However, as we highlighted at the time of the half year results, the timing of order placement and product delivery remains difficult to forecast. A number of orders expected to be placed in the third quarter have been delayed with delivery now anticipated in 2016, impacting the Group's results for the current year.
“Rotork operates a lean business model and we have continued to implement our previously-announced cost management initiatives and are on track to achieve the savings indicated at the time of our half year results. However, these savings will not be sufficient to mitigate the profit impact of lower revenues in the year.
“Taking all of the above into account and based on current exchange rates, we now expect revenue for the year to be in the range of £530m-£555m with adjusted operating profit in the range of £120m-£130m.”
Last month Rotork acquired Italian valve manufacturer M&M International for €9.7m (£6.9m) in a deal aimed at broadening its product portfolio and entering new markets.
