Irish engineering firm Kentz said today full-year profit rose by 52 per cent in 2010, driven by strong growth in the Australasia region, beating market expectations, and raised its dividend.

Kentz, whose clients include Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Exxon Mobil, said it planned to grow through acquisitions.

The company raised its full-year dividend by 67 per cent to 10 cents a share and said it was trading in line with expectations.

Kentz, which gets about 42 per cent of its revenue from the Middle East, said there had been no material impact on any of its projects due to the political unrest in the region.

Pretax profit rose to $67.5 million in 2010 from $44.5 million the previous year.

Revenue jumped 50 per cent to $1.06 billion. Sales from Australasia jumped to $207.4 million from $1.6 million, helped by a surge in LNG projects in the region. Analysts on average expected a pretax profit of $63.3 million on revenue of $1.04 billion.

Reuters