Upbeat trading update prompts earnings revision from analysts

Analysts are upgrading Keller’s full-year profit forecast after the firm said booming workloads in North America meant the ground engineer is performing ahead of expectations.

The firm turned in a record set of results last year with revenue up 1% to £2.9bn with pre-tax profit up 123% to £126m.

In this morning’s update, the firm said its “overall performance [was] materially ahead of prior year” for the first four months of 2024.

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More than half of the firm’s business comes from North America, mainly the US

It added: “In North America, trading continued to be strong, driven by ongoing infrastructure spend and the sustained improvement in the operational performance of the foundations business.”

In March, chief executive Michael Speakman said he didn’t expect this November’s US election to impact workloads. “The market there is really buoyant and is stronger than anywhere else. They are onshoring some critical industries like chip manufacturing and that will keep going for quite a few years.”

In a note, broker Investec said it was upgrading underlying profit this year to £178m from £162m and to £188m from £172m next year.

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