BAE Systems 1st Half Pretax Profit Rose, Launches Buyback Program

By Anthony O. Goriainoff

BAE Systems PLC said Thursday that its pretax profit rose for the first half as revenue rose, and that it was launching a buyback program of up to 500 million pounds ($695.1 million).

The London-listed defense company said that, for the six months ended June 30, pretax profit was GBP1.15 billion compared with GBP689 million for the first half of 2020.

Underlying earnings per share--the company's preferred metric, which strips out exceptional and other one-off items--rose to 21.9 pence a share from 18.7 pence a share in the year-prior period.

The company's order intake in the period was GBP10.58 billion, compared with GBP9.34 billion last year, while its backlog totaled GBP44.6 billion.

Revenue for the period was GBP9.34 billion compared with GBP9.18 billion the year before.

The company said it expects group sales to grow in the 3% to 5% range over 2021, based on a strong pound-to-dollar exchange rate.

"If these higher currency rates persist in line with the first-half average rates, we expect reported sales to be at the lower end of this guidance range," the company said.

Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 29, 2021 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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