BAE poised to report results after year of job cuts and jet blow

The group announced in November that it would stop shipbuilding in Portsmouth with the loss of 940 jobs while there would be 835 redundancies in Glasgow, Rosyth, Fife, and at Filton, near Bristol.

In December, it revealed that a deal reportedly worth £6bn to sell 60 Typhoon jets to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had collapsed, despite Prime Minister David Cameron pressing the case for it during a Middle East visit.

It also said it was still in negotiations with Saudi Arabia over a Eurofighter Typhoon deal, adding that while good progress had been made, a definitive agreement had yet to be reached.

The group has said profits for the year would suffer if price negotiations for the jets dragged on beyond 2013. Experts at Deutsche Bank are expecting group sales to have increased by 5.5 per cent to £18.8bn over 2013 and are pencilling in a nine per cent rise in underlying pre-tax profits to £1.8bn, but this does not take into account the impact of the Saudi deal not being signed.

The analysts added in a note: “Following the December disappointment over the hoped for UAE Eurofighter contract, the market will be looking for an update on the remaining export contract pipeline.

“After the UAE news, management will likely need to work to rebuild confidence and credibility around this.”

Elsewhere, BAE was hit by the US government shutdown late last year which saw more than 1,000 US intelligence, security and support staff sitting idle as Washington politicians squabbled over the budget. The company employs around 870 people at its site in Brough, East Yorkshire.