Nuclear Submarine Contractor, £1.4 Billion in Debt

management at the defence contractor wrote down the value of the company
and the profitability of its contracts. In an unscheduled statement a few
weeks before a planned update on a review of the business, Babcock said it
had “identified impairments and charges totalling approximately £1.7
billion”. That will come on top of profits from operations plunging more
than 40 per cent to £307 million from £524 million. The review was
ordered after a changing of the guard at the company last year with the
departure of its chief executive, the long-serving Archie Bethell, and his
finance director Franco Martinelli, which followed increasing frustration
and criticism of a company that has continually disappointed investors.
They were replaced by David Lockwood and David Mellors who had become
available after their previous employer, the aerospace company Cobham, was
taken over. Babcock is a crucial Ministry of Defence contractor, operating
the Devonport naval dockyard at Plymouth, building Royal Navy warships at
its Rosyth yard near Edinburgh and key supplier into the supply chain
building the country’s new generation of nuclear submarines.

Times 13th April 2021

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/babcock-to-plunge-1-4bn-into-the-red-after-writedown-7kztsznrt