Babcock to make 10,000 ventilators as firm takes small hit from coronavirus

The FTSE 100 firm, which is one of the UK military’s largest contractors, is the latest industrial giant to join manufacturing efforts as the country seeks to “ramp up” the readiness of the health system to counter the disease.

It joins firms such as Dyson, which have also been asked to make 10,000 of the breathing aids, as well as consortia of F1 teams and engineering blue-chips such as BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce.

Babcock has a strong presence in the region, including the Defence Support Group operation at MoD Donnington, in Telford, and the former Macneillie specialist vehicle conversions business at Aldridge, now renamed Babcock Vehicle Engineering.

It said the new units would be produced in partnership with a major international supplier of critical care ventilators.

It comes after new ventilators arrived at a military base in Shropshire ready to be sent out to hospitals this week.

Cabinet Minister Michael Gove revealed the much-needed ventilators had been sent to the Ministry of Defence's base in Donnington, near Telford.

He also thanked GKN Aerospace, which has a base in Telford, for being part of an industry consortium producing the ventilators.

In a statement, the firm said that it was occupied in the battle against coronavirus across most of its divisions, with its emergency services division “on the frontline” of the crisis response.

It added that its aerial emergency services businesses were working across Europe to support governments.

Babcock said that excluding a “small impact” from Covid-19, its business had performed in line with financial expectations last year.

It added: “While the vast majority of our services continue, some areas of the business are running at reduced levels, including short cycle work and some training and transportation activities."

The consequences of the pandemic for the next financial year remains to be seen, Babcock said, but the company stressed the strength of both its long and short-term order book, as well as steps it was taking to guard against financial damage:

“We are taking actions to mitigate the financial impact of Covid-19 including reducing and deferring non-essential operating and capital expenditure where possible, without impacting customer delivery.

“We will consider the use of government programmes to help manage areas of inactivity where they exist and we have postponed the annual pay increase for the senior management team."

Babcock has not yet cancelled its dividend, but said it would be reviewed ahead of its full year results announcement.