While Austal does not typically provide EBIT guidance, following a preliminary consolidation of its FY2019 results, the Company’s associated outlook for FY2020 and a comparison with analysts’ expectations, the Company considers it appropriate to update the market for FY2020.

Austal expects EBIT of not less than $105 million in FY2020, with the increase over FY2019 largely driven by improvement from Austal’s Australasia shipyards as well as continued strong performance on Austal’s two major vessel programs for the US Navy.

Of note, Austal now holds a substantial order book of commercial ferry contracts, with recent major investments made at the Company’s Australasia shipyards now driving growth in shipbuilding throughput. These investments include an expansion of the Philippines shipyard, which has trebled construction capacity, and the establishment of a leased shipyard in Vietnam. Austal is closely managing the expansion of its Philippines shipyard and opening of its Vietnamese shipyard to manage operational risk. The extent of earnings growth from Austal Australasia in FY2020 will become clearer as the commercial ferry contracts are completed.

Austal will release its FY2019 results by 30 August 2019 and will provide more fulsome comments on its outlook at that time.