Braemar holds firm on full-year guidance after dramatic year
Shipbroker Braemar is sticking to its plotted course for its 2024 profit and revenue numbers, despite a turbulent year of suspended shares and Red Sea trouble.
The London-listed shipping firm today said that it expects to finish the 2024 financial year with no less than £150m in revenue and an underlying operating profit of no less than £18m when it reports results in May.
These would represent £3m and £2m year-on-year reductions in the respective metrics, but would fall within line of the company’s guidance of £150.4m revenue and £18m profit.
The group declared it maintained a positive cash position with net cash at 29 February 2024 of £1m, a £6m decrease on the year prior.
This, Braemar said, was attributable to funding the cost of the previously announced internal independent investigation conducted and concluded last year, certain tax payments and share buybacks during the period.
A final dividend of 9p, up 1p from last year, per ordinary share is expected to be delivered, resulting in a total dividend for the year of 13p, up from 12p in the last financial year, an increase of eight per cent.
The group said it has entered its financial year for 2025 with “great confidence”, built on an $83m forward order book; 47 per cent larger than the $56m recorded a year prior.
The firm’s shares are down 11 per cent year-on-year, principally down to the market suspending its trading in July last year for missing a financial reporting deadline over an internal probe into legacy broking deals.
The group resumed trading on the exchange in November after a four-month suspension and saw shares jump 15 per cent on return.
Braemar made no mention of the impact of Houthi rebels operating in the Red Sea in the Middle East, which has caused such disruption to the wider global shipping industry since the end of last year.
Last week, one of the world’s largest shippers, Hapag Lloyd, said that its profit fell 83 per cent last year as a year with a lull in demand was then book-ended by the attacks on Western ships.