Shares in Keller suffered their biggest one-day fall on record after the British ground engineering specialist lowered profit expectations for the second time in three months.
The FTSE 250 group, which built the foundations for London’s Olympic stadium, said on Thursday that its underlying results in 2016 would be about 15 per cent lower than market estimates, mainly as a result of losses in its Asia-Pacific division.
Shares fell 26.8 per cent to 647p, valuing the company at £467m.
Keller provides services such as piling, ground improvement works and cable reinforcement of concrete foundations for large construction projects. Underlying pre-tax profit was £95.7m last year, after removing one-off costs, on revenue of £1.56bn.
In an unscheduled trading update on Thursday, Keller said its two largest divisions — one in North America and another covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa — had delivered “steady results” in the third quarter of 2016. Together they account for about 70 per cent of group revenue.
“[The profit warning] rather spoils what has been a good story in the US and Emea,” said Alex Paterson, an analyst at Investec.
The company’s activities in Asia — which include businesses in Australia, Singapore and Malaysia — are likely to come under increasing scrutiny from investors, after management spoke of a continuation of “very difficult market conditions” during the period.
“The recovery in this division is likely to be more gradual and protracted than previously thought,” the company said.
Problems at the unit, in part down to project delays, prompted the company to say in August that profits would be at the lower end of its range, which led the stock to shed more than 10 per cent. The Australian business has been hit by the commodities downturn as resources groups slash investment.
In addition to the earnings downgrade, management said it would book a £10m restructuring charge in the second half of the year.
Despite the gloom, Keller said its order book for work over the next 12 months was at an all-time high and 15 per cent above this time last year, on a like-for-like basis.
However, Christen Hjorth, analyst at Numis, said “investors may be sceptical of management guidance” given the company’s second downgrade in short succession.
