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LONDON — British arms manufacturer BAE Systems said Aug. 2 that net profits were flat in the first half of 2012.
Earnings after taxation eased to 474 million pounds ($737 million, 602 million euros) in the six months to June, compared with 478 million pounds in the same part of last year, BAE Systems said in a results statement.
Total revenues retreated by 11 percent to 8.33 billion pounds during the same period, while pre-tax profits dropped 5.2 percent to 655 million pounds.
However, the group’s order book grew to 40 billion pounds, compared with 39.1 billion pounds last time around.
In recent years, the group’s performance has been hit as military budgets were cut in Britain and in the United States.
“The outlook for defense spending in the U.K. has stabilized,” BAE Systems said in Thursday’s earnings release.
It added: “In the U.S., the approval of the Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2012 budget in December 2011 has resulted in less disruption to the award of defense contracts compared with the corresponding period for 2011.”
