Austin Engineering raises revenue guidance but cuts profit forecast

Austin Engineering announced on Wednesday it had increased guidance for FY25 revenue to approximately $370 million, up from the $350 million forecast in February, but revised underlying EBIT guidance down from approximately $50 million to circa $41 million.

The engineering company said revenue was expected to be up by approximately 18 per cent versus FY24 revenue, while underlying EBIT would be up approximately 8 per cent from FY24.

The forecast group revenue increase was due to continued strong performance in the Americas, with revenues in the USA and Chile expected to be up sharply in FY25 driven by strong local and international market forces in supportive jurisdictions.

Higher orders in the USA have been enabled following the previously announced expansion in manufacturing capacity, which was largely in place and operational by the end of April 2025.

At the beginning of the financial year, Austin won a strategically important and potentially multi-year contract for supply of truck bodies to be delivered from its Chile facility. The program has been demanding and necessitated a major ramp up, which has strained the capacity of the facility.

Discussions on price variations have proven unsuccessful and following additional customer interactions, Austin now intends to redirect a significant proportion of production fulfilment for this contract to its manufacturing facility in Batam.

This is expected to progressively allow for an improvement in the project margin in parallel with the development of the Chile site facility. However, in the short term this has led to the adjustment in the underlying FY25 EBIT forecast.

Chief Executive David Singleton said he was disappointed with the margin performance in Chile as local capacity was strained.

“We are working to address and improve efficiency in that operation and using our global reach to outsource some of the production to Batam in the meantime,” Singleton said.

“We remain confident about the potential size and longevity of the contract in Chile and therefore the potential for future profitable revenue growth.”

The APAC business continues to deliver strongly with revenue up in the second half compared to H1 FY25 and margin in line with Austin’s target range.

At the end of April 2025, the group total order book remained over $200 million and up 5 per cent compared to the same time last year.

Austin is a global engineering company that designs and manufactures loading and hauling solutions for mining operations, including off-highway dump truck bodies, buckets, water tanks and related attachments.

Picture: credit Austin Engineering