Westminster Group

On the day it was revealed profit warnings from UK-listed companies have hit their highest levels for six years, Westminster Group was punished after news that contract delays would dent annual numbers to December 2007.

The supplier of technology security equipment and solutions to the global security, defence, fire protection and safety markets was forecast to make £140,000 of pre-tax profit from £4.1 million turnover for 2007, but slippage on a number of deals it expected to ink in the second half means those numbers won’t be met.

Significantly for investors, these deals haven’t been lost – anything but. They ‘remain under negotiation’ and chief executive Peter Fowler expects to be able to announce them shortly. Banbury-based but also targeting the less competitive security markets of the Middle East, the Far East and Africa through a network of agents, Westminster, whose clients include governments and government agencies, appears to have traded well in the second half of the financial year.

Second-half orders won gave the group a £1.6m secured order book going into 2008 – notably, Westminster’s RMS business, which installs low-voltage fire protection and security systems into high-rise buildings, recently bagged £750,000 worth of contracts. Fowler is also pleased ‘with the current run rate of orders won by the group’, which has a balanced spread of contracts across its subsidiaries and geographic territories.

Fowler tantalised with news of ‘a number’ of acquisition opportunities currently under review, which will speed up growth at Westminster, whose development has hitherto been exclusively organic. Certainly one to watch long term, Westminster, which joined AIM with a £2.5m funding at 67.5p last June, is probably best avoided for now, at least until the fog clears.

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