Rolls-Royce's Profit Boosted By Strong Orders

Strong growth at Rolls-Royce's civil aerospace unit has helped it report a rise in profit for 2012.

The engine-maker also confirmed BP director Ian Davis as its new chairman - as revealed by Sky News' City Editor on Wednesday .

Mr Davis, a former partner at management consultancy McKinsey, replaces Sir Simon Robertson as head of the company's board.

Rolls-Royce said underlying pre-tax profit was up 24% at £1.4bn in 2012 - an increase for the tenth year in a row.

The company, which is the world's second-largest maker of aircraft engines after the US' General Electric, saw an 8% increase in revenue to £12.2bn.

Its order book increased by 4% over the year boosted by £10.3bn of new civil aerospace orders, as demand soared for the company's more fuel-efficient engines.

In a statement chief executive, John Rishton, said: "The strength of our order book demonstrates the confidence our customers have in our products and services.

"In 2013, we expect modest growth in underlying revenue and good growth in underlying profit with cash flow around break even as we continue to invest for the future."

There were fears Rolls-Royce would be affected by the global grounding of Boeing's Dreamliner, after the aircraft was hit by a string of technical issues.

But Mr Rishton said he was "confident" Boeing would sort out the problem and insisted his company had not been impacted by the situation.

Rolls-Royce manufactures the Trent 1000 engine which powers the Dreamliner planes.

The results come after months of uncertainty about the company and its leadership following corruption allegations relating to payments made by its subsidiaries overseas.

Rolls-Royce said it had passed information to the Serious Fraud Office following a request for information about allegations of malpractice in Indonesia and China.

It said it had "significantly strengthened" its compliance procedures in recent years, and added: "As a further measure, we have appointed Lord Gold to lead a review of current procedures and report to the ethics committee of the board."