Avio profits up in 2010
Italian aero-engine specialist Avio has seen pre-tax earnings rise nine per cent year-on-year, to €339m, after posting three per cent revenue growth for 2010.
Consolidated revenues totalled just over €1.7bn, including €1.4bn for AeroEngine and €45m for AvioService (+19 per cent on 2009). Avio attributed the strong performance of AvioService in part to an expansion strategy involving PW100 maintenance programmes. Contributory factors to AeroEngine’s growth included the first deliveries of GEnx for the 787 Dreamliner and 747-8 and the revaluation of the dollar against the euro. The company described its orderbook of €6bn (+1 per cent on 2009) as “a new record in the Group’s history” and profitability improvement as “more than proportional”. Net debt at nominal value fell slightly to €1.4bn.
Avio Group chairman Alan Bowkett described the results as “encouraging” in an unstable macroeconomic scenario. The company anticipates revenue growth in 2011 from market recovery and the regular production of GEnx engines. Avio intends to proceed with the start-up of Chinese joint ventures and initiatives in India and Brazil under the guidance of its newly appointed CEO, Francesco Caio, currently vice-chairman of investment banking at Nomura.
