WoodMac on track for another year of growth

Wood Mackenzie, the energy, mining and metals research group, is on track for another year of growth despite a “challenging” backdrop of natural disasters and Middle East unrest.

Accounts for 2010 revealed the firm’s 23rd consecutive year of revenue growth, and WoodMac’s directors noted that the business had made a “very good start to 2011”.

They added: “We are confident that this pace will be maintained in the year ahead, despite the challenging environment we operate in, be it from earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan to the current unrest in the Middle East.

“The large number of research products that we have launched over the last 12 months will make a strong contribution to revenue, profit and operating cash-flow growth in 2011.”

In the year to the end of December, profit before tax jumped 14 per cent to £48.3 million on an 18 per cent rise in turnover to £128.1m.

A rise in the headcount during the year to almost 650 helped push overall staffing costs up to almost £52.5m from £44.1m. The directors’ remuneration report showed that the highest-paid director received £317,500, a hike of £100,000 on a year earlier.

Formed as a stockbroker in Edinburgh in the 1840s, WoodMac rose to prominence in the 1970s, when it began writing reports on the North Sea. It remains headquartered in the city with offices in about 20 other cities worldwide.

In 2009, the firm was bought by Charterhouse Capital Partners from fellow private equity group Candover, which also provided an exit from a number of other shareholders.

WoodMac highlighted its “diversity of revenue by geography”, with 44 per cent of earnings from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 36 per cent from the Americas and 20 per cent from Asia Pacific.