Manufacturing giant Rolls Royce has reported a net loss of £3.9 billion for financial 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic took a huge toll on the aviation sector.

The British company saw revenue fall from £15.4 billion to £11.7 billion over the year.

Rolls Royce has cut 7,000 jobs over the past 12 months and has been forced to raise cash from investors to bolster its finances.

Releasing its results, the firm said it had liquidity of £9 billion on hand, having protected its financial position with £7.3 billion of new debt and equity.

The company also launched a programme to raise at least £2 billion from disposals.

Warren East, Rolls Royce chief executive, said: “The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the group was felt most acutely by our civil aerospace business.

“In response, we took immediate actions to address our cost base, launching the largest restructuring in our recent history, consolidating our global manufacturing footprint and delivering significant cost reduction measures.

“We have taken decisive actions to enhance our financial resilience and permanently improve our operational efficiency, resulting in a regrettable, but unfortunately very necessary, reduction in the size of our workforce.”

He added: “With the support of our stakeholders we successfully secured additional liquidity with a rights issue, bond issuance and further credit facilities put in place during the year.

“We have made a good start on our programme of disposals and will continue with this in 2021.

“We continue to invest in developing market-leading technology and low carbon opportunities in all our end markets, to create value for our stakeholders and ensure we are well positioned to take advantage of the transition to a lower carbon economy and growing demand for more sustainable power solutions.”

The Derby-based company expects to burn through another £2 billion cash this year as it continues to restructure the business.

Rolls Royce has also warned it may have to slash a further 2,000 jobs.

Image: Rolls Royce