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Investing.com -- Weir Group PLC (LON:WEIR) on Wednesday reported a solid third quarter performance and reaffirmed its full-year guidance despite some mixed results across its business segments.
The engineering company maintained its forecast for growth in constant currency revenue and EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes and amortization) for fiscal year 2025, with margins expected to remain around 20% and free operating cash conversion between 90% and 100%.
Weir’s overall order intake declined 2% year-over-year on an organic constant currency basis but increased 2% on a constant currency basis. The company noted its book-to-bill ratio remained positive at 1.01 times for the quarter and 1.06 times year-to-date.
The Minerals division saw orders decrease by 6% compared to the same period last year, which the company attributed to tough prior year comparatives. Excluding large orders from the previous year worth £48 million, underlying original equipment orders grew 13%, driven by brownfield expansion and debottlenecking projects. Aftermarket orders in the division increased by 3%.
ESCO division performed strongly with orders up 11% on an organic constant currency basis. Original equipment orders surged 36% while aftermarket orders grew 9%, supported by strong demand for mining buckets and expansion in the Asia-Pacific region. The division’s growth was also bolstered by contributions from Motion Metrics and Micromine.
The company’s Performance Excellence program remains on track to deliver £80 million in cumulative savings by fiscal year 2026.
Weir Group noted that foreign exchange headwinds are now expected to impact sales by £105 million and EBITA by £25 million, slightly higher than previous estimates.
The company expects its net debt to EBITDA ratio to be below 2.0 times by December 2025 and below 1.5 times by the end of fiscal year 2026.