After reporting a stronger financial performance for the year to end-September, Reunert announced on Thursday that a succession plan was now in the works for group CFO Nick Thomson.
While Thomson’s specific retirement date was still undecided, he would be stepping down from his role as CFO and executive director at some point during the 2025 financial year, said Reunert, adding that the details would be announced once it had selected Thomson’s successor and finalised a date for the new CFO to take office.
The news was accompanied by its annual results, which saw the group reporting headline earnings per share (HEPS) at 665c, up 10% from the year before.
Profit amounted to R1.038bn, with the 8% year-on-year increase attributed to continued strong cash flow generation and working capital management — which allowed the group to halve its net interest expense compared with the previous period.
It upped its final dividend 11% to 276c.
Group revenue rose 5% at R14.45bn, led by a 27% increase in revenue for Reunert’s ICT segment, thanks to the successful integration of IQbusiness into the segment, having acquired the company in July last year.
The improvement was somewhat offset by supply chain disruptions in the first half caused by challenges at Transnet’s ports. As a result, the segment only delivered a 7% increase in operating profit.
In contrast, the group’s electrical engineering segment delivered R665m in operating profit, up 20%, with most of the improvement coming from its Zambian power cable business.
The group’s SA power cable operations were resilient despite being weighed down by a reduction in contracts as some projects were delayed by key municipal and provincial customers.
Reunert also highlighted strong growth for its defence cluster, whose order book increased to R2.7bn in the period while also recording strong sales across its fuse and radar businesses. The results were enhanced by a stable yet slightly weaker rand, said the company.
The group’s solar energy business achieved a record build of new plants in the period, with a total of 78MW in solar assets under ownership, in construction and near financial close — up 37%.
The group’s battery storage business was severely affected by a collapse of the residential and small commercial battery storage market, due to reduced load-shedding and excess supply, resulting in the impairment of its goodwill and intangible assets.
Reunert said it was encouraged by the political developments in SA since the elections in May and expected key economic indicators to steadily improve.
“An improvement in SA GDP, gross domestic fixed investment and business confidence will support Reunert’s growth, though we remain cautious on the extent and timing of the expected rate of improvement in these indices,” said the company.
Reunert said it was well positioned to deliver a growth in year-on-year financial performance in 2025, but warned that the first half would remain challenging, “as similar market conditions as 2024 exist, and the phasing of the group’s defence export contracts, high voltage orders and the expected increase in infrastructure orders bias the group’s growth towards the second half”.
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