Rolls-Royce profits more than double as aviation industry recovers

Rolls-Royce has seen its profits more than double following the recovery of the aviation sector, the company has reported.

The engineering giant, which has major UK sites near Bristol and in Derby, announced on Thursday (February 22) underlying operating profits of £1.6bn for 2023 – up from £652m the previous year. It swung to a statutory pre-tax profit of £2.4bn last year, from losses of £1.5bn in 2022.

Rolls-Royce’s said its plans to axe up to 2,500 jobs by the end of 2025 as part of major cost-saving measures were also “well under way”. The company has already delivered around £150m of its £400m-£500m cost savings target announced in October, when it revealed that between 2,000 to 2,500 roles would go as part of the plans.

Tufan Erginbilgic, Rolls-Royce’s chief executive, said: “Our transformation has delivered a record performance in 2023, driven by commercial optimisation, cost efficiencies and progress on our strategic initiatives. This step change has been achieved across all our divisions, despite a volatile environment with geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain challenges and inflationary pressures.

“We are managing the business differently and our significant performance improvement in the year reflects the hard work and focused actions of all our teams. We are also continuing to invest to drive future sustainable growth.

“Our strong delivery in 2023 gives us confidence in our 2024 guidance and is a significant step towards our mid-term targets. We are unlocking our full potential as a high-performing, competitive, resilient, and growing Rolls-Royce.”

Rolls-Royce forecast that underlying earnings would lift again over the year ahead, to between £1.7bn and £2bn, but cautioned that supply chain “challenges” would continue for up to another two years, while also flagging ongoing pressures from geopolitical uncertainty and inflation.

Source: https://www.business-live.co.uk/manufacturing/rolls-royce-profits-more-double-28680934