Rolls-Royce shares climb 18% after launch of strategic review

This, the CEO says, is to identify areas to focus on in the future.

As IGTV’s Jeremy Naylor says, the stock has now doubled since the lows back in September last year as investors see new potential.

(Video Transcript)

Rolls-Royce shares surge

Shares in the aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce have been one of the leading gainers, certainly in terms of volumes and also in terms of share progress as a result of news out this morning, not just from earnings, but also a strategic review at the company to identify good areas of operation for the business.

Let's take a look at what's been happening in terms of the numbers where we've seen underlying operating profit up on this time last year, £652 million revenues coming in better than expected at £13.5 billion.

Share price chart

The company said that a strategic review is now underway to identify investment priorities. And also, if you look at the share price chart, you can see quite clearly here this outperformance has taken us up well beyond previous highs and this original high, up 78% from the lows that we had, can now be extended, but now up 100%. We've now doubled the share price since the lows we had back on the 26th of September.

The company says that it has benefited as well, mostly from a return to the air for us all. After lockdowns, after COVID, we've gone back in the air and the aero-engine business is now doing a lot better than it was. It's still well off the highs that we had. This company saw an 84% slump in business from the highs we had back on 11 June 2020, just after the COVID lockdowns were announced. And that slumped, taking us all the way down to the September lows. The share price chart having now doubled over that last four or five month period as the company looks to an improved outlook.