James Fisher - its market is the Blue Economy as it gears up its Commercial Sales, shares 499p, TP 580p

Mark Watson-Mitchell - 12.03.2026

Canny followers of the shares of James Fisher & Sons (LON:FSJ) have this morning had an excellent buying opportunity following the group announcing its 2025 Final Results.

In reaction, the group's shares fell by some 36.58p to a Low of 467.42p, before bouncing back up to the current 499p - a level at which new investors should be scrambling to get aboard the £250m-capitalised group's equity.

James Fisher Defence - deep saturation

In fact, I remain totally confident of my SQC Research Target Price of 580p for the group's shares.

The group is a global engineering services company that provides services such as engineering, inspection, installation, commissioning, operations, maintenance, lifting and handling to the oil and gas, marine, renewable energy, shipping, defence, nuclear, ports and terminals, transportation, and infrastructure industries.

This morning, I spoke with CEO Jean Vernet and CFO Karen Hayzen-Smith and came away totally bullish about their strategy as they continue to transform the group's operations.

It reported a 4.3% increase in revenue to £377.2m and a 56.3% rise in underlying operating profit to £28.6m for the 2025 year.

Its operating margins improved by 250 basis points to 7.6%.

The company successfully reduced net debt to £54.4m, maintaining a covenant leverage of 1.3x, and saw a 250 basis point improvement in return on capital employed to 8.6%.

Strategic progress was made through portfolio simplification and operational restructuring, with positive momentum expected to continue into 2026, supported by largely favourable end markets, particularly in Defence.

CEO Jean Vernet stated that:

"I am encouraged by our continued progress through 2025 where a good second-half performance allowed us to upgrade expectations; we made progress in accelerating our growth strategy while still maintaining our debt well within our leverage range.

Throughout the year we followed our core principles resulting in a streamlined business portfolio, strengthened product base and international expansion.

The turn-around of our Decommissioning business, improved volumes in Defence and the simplification of our portfolio through the staged closures of IRM businesses contributed to improved underlying profit margins and return on capital.

2025 was a turning point for James Fisher. It marked a year in which our efforts to focus, simplify and deliver have laid the groundwork for sustainable growth.

Over the past three years, this approach has strengthened the Group, creating a more resilient business and a clearer platform from which we can unlock further opportunities.

As we move into the next chapter and focus on growth, we apply our specialist expertise and unique capabilities with rigorous execution and delivery discipline, improving the quality and visibility of revenue while continuing to invest in new products which bring innovative solutions that address our customers' biggest challenges, across our core geographies.

Overall market conditions remain largely supportive, and 2026 trading has started in line with management expectations.

Whilst early in the year and mindful of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, the Board remains confident of delivering continued progress in 2026, building further towards our medium-term financial targets of 10% underlying operating profit margin and 15% ROCE.''

I will be reviewing Broker analyst comments in due course, but in the meantime, I repeat that I am confident of my Target Price at 580p.

(Profile 11.02.25 @ 345p set a Target Price of 410p*)

(Profile 24.02.26 @ 498p set a Target Price of 580p)