Results in brief

	2005	2004
Results from continuing operations
Sales2	£15,411m	£13,222m
EBITA3	£1,182m	£1,016m
Operating profit	£900m	£774m
Underlying earning per share4	22.5p	17.4p
Basic earnings per share5	18.3p	14.2p
Other results including discounted operations
Dividend per share	10.3p	9.5p
Cash inflow from operating activities	£2,099m	£2,350m
Net debt as defined by the Group	£1,277m	£668m
Order book6	£59.8bn	£50.1bn

Highlights

• Delivering US growth strategy


• Global land systems business established


• Programmes business profitability and risk profile improved


• Growth from UK MoD partnered support


• European business portfolio restructuring


• Strong Airbus order intake


• Strong operating cash flow


• Underlying earnings per share⁴ up 29.3% at 22.5p


• Dividend increased 8.4% to 10.3p per share for the year

Outlook
Looking forward to 2006, we anticipate an improved performance from our defence businesses with modest organic growth and a full year contribution from the former United Defense activities. We also anticipate an increased contribution from the commercial aerospace sector.

We expect to translate operating profit into operating cash flow, other than some small utilisation of customer advances. We intend to make one-off cash contributions to the pension schemes in 2006.

1	as restated under International Financial Reporting Standards
2	including share of equity accounted investments' sales
3	earnings before amortisation and impairment of intangible assets, finance costs and taxation expense
4	earnings per share excluding amortisation and impairment of intangible assets, non-cash finance movements on pensions and financial derivatives, and uplift on acquired inventories (see note 5)
5	basic earnings per share in accordance with International Accounting Standard 33
6	including share of equity accounted investments' order books and after the elimination of intra-group orders of £0.9bn (2004 £2.6bn)

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