On Friday, Rolls-Royce warned its full year profits could drop by as much as 13% on top of an 8% drop last year. The engine manufacturer stated that it expects to make a pretax profit of £1.4 to £1.55 billion in 2015, a drop of up to 10 percentage points on its previous forecast in October for profits to be up to 3% lower.
Rolls-Royce said it made an underlying pretax profit of £1.617 billion last year, a decline of 8% on the previous year.
Rolls Royce stated that delays in the 787 and A350 programmes meant that new engine production capacity was being under used.
“We have met guidance for 2014 revenue and profit in challenging conditions while continuing to build strong foundations for future growth,” said John Rishton, Chief Executive of Rolls Royce. "2014 has been a mixed year during which underlying revenue fell for the first time in a decade, reflecting reduced spending by our defence customers, macroeconomic uncertainty, and falling commodity prices. In response to these headwinds, we are taking decisive action to improve the Group's financial performance and accelerating our focus on the 4Cs: Customer, Concentration, Cost and Cash. This includes a major restructuring programme in our Aerospace Division and continued rationalisation of our Land & Sea Division.
"The fundamentals of our business remain solid, with long-term growth in demand for the complex power systems we deliver across our Aerospace and Land & Sea Divisions.
"In Aerospace, the delivery of the first Airbus A350XWB, powered by the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine, marked a significant milestone in our most important programme. In Land & Sea, we introduced a new family of medium-speed reciprocating engines.
"Our record order book demonstrates the faith our customers continue to place in our technology and underpins our confidence in future growth.