2026년 2월 26일 · Unknown · financial · 출처 Uk
Rolls-Royce (RR.L) shares popped on Thursday, after the aerospace engineer reported a jump of nearly 40% in profits, capping off another strong earnings season for UK defence-related stocks.
The company reported underlying operating profit of £3.46bn for 2025, up 38% year-on-year on an organic basis. Basic earnings per share (EPS) for the year were up 46% at 29.55p and it ended 2025 with free cash flow of £3.27bn. This was £845m higher than a year earlier.
Revenue came in at £20.06bn for the year, up 14% on 2024. The biggest chunk of that total came from Rolls-Royce's civil aerospace business, with revenue for this division growing 15% to £10.38bn in 2025.
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The company's defence business brought in £4.77bn of revenue last year, up 8% on 2024, while its power systems division contributed £4.89bn, growing 19% year-on-year.
Rolls-Royce declared a final dividend of 5p per share, taking its total for the year to 9.5p, which was 58% higher than 2024.
On the back of this strong set of results, the company said it expected to deliver underlying operating profit of £4bn to £4.2bn in 2026 and free cash flow of £3.6bn to £3.8bn.
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The company also upgraded its mid-term targets to underlying operating profit of £4.9bn of £5.2bn and free cash flow of £5.0bn to £5.3bn. That compares with previous targets of £3.6bn to £3.9bn in underlying operating profit and free cash flow of £4.2bn to £4.5bn, offered in the company's half-year results.
In addition, Rolls-Royce announced £7bn to £9bn of share buybacks that it planned to undertake across 2026 to 2028, with £2.5bn to be completed this year.
Tufan Erginbilgic, CEO of Rolls-Royce, said that the company's transformation continues with "pace and intensity", and that it had "built the foundations for significant growth for years to come".
This bumper set of results and positive outlook drove shares in the FTSE 100 (^FTSE) company 6% higher on Thursday morning, with the stock up having soared 120% over one year.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: "Rolls-Royce has managed to do what Nvidia (NVDA) couldn't – engineer a share price bounce following results. The share buyback provided the magic sauce for today's surge to fresh highs, since, like Nvidia, the strong earnings backdrop was already expected by investors."
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"It looks like the FTSE 100's version of Nvidia will keep delivering for investors, as it responds to renewed demand for defence spending across Europe and a fresh ramp up in US outlays on the way too," he said.
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Investors have piled into UK-listed defence-related stocks over the past year, such as Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems (BA.L) and Babcock International (BAB.L), as governments have pledged to spend more in this space amid heightened geopolitical tensions.
Last year, Nato members committed to increasing spending on defence and related areas to 5% of their countries' gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035. Earlier in February, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that Britain needed to "go faster" on defence spending.
Rolls-Royce's latest figures come a week BAE Systems delivered its preliminary annual results. Shares in the fellow UK blue-chip stock also rose after it posted 10% growth in sales for the year to £30.67bn and underlying EPS increased 12% to 75.2p.
For the year ahead, BAE (BA.L) said it expected sales to increase 7% to 9% on this year's figure and forecast 9% to 11% growth in underlying EPS.
Meanwhile, Babcock International (BAB.L) said in its third-quarter trading update last month that it was confident in delivering on full-year expectations, including meeting a margin target of 8%.
In wider Europe, Italian defence group Leonardo (LDO.MI) also reported this week, saying on Tuesday that it had delivered full-year results above guidance. The company said new orders had increased 15% in 2025 to €23.8bn (£20.8bn), while revenues had grown 11% to €19.5bn and earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (EBITA) jumped 18% to €1.75bn.
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