Britain's Rolls-Royce warned Thursday over profits at its marine unit, sending its share price sliding, and repeated that the engine maker's earnings and revenues would flatten this year.

The firm said in a trading update that production problems at the division would spark an exceptional charge of �30 million ($51 million, 36 million euros).

Profit and sales at the group's marine arm will be down 10 percent this year, hit by the one-off charge and lower services volume, it added, without providing further details of the "product quality issue".

The group had previously forecast modest profit growth for the unit.

Rolls also maintained its guidance that the overall group would not experience revenue or profits growth in 2014.

"We remain confident that the group will resume growth in 2015," it added.

Rolls had already flagged in February that the group would not experience growth this year, as government cutbacks on defence spending ends the company's decade of rampant growth.

Thursday's news sent the group's shares down 2.86 percent to 1,020 pence in morning deals on London's FTSE 100 index, which rose 0.36 percent to 6,804.24 points.

The gloomy warning came a day after Rolls-Royce said it was in talks over the possible sale of its energy production arm to German engineering giant Siemens.

Rolls added on Thursday: "These talks have not concluded and we will make a further announcement in due course."

Siemens had revealed Tuesday that it had decided to make an offer for French firm Alstom's energy division, in an attempt to thwart a rival bid from US giant General Electric.

NZ's Anzac-class frigates getting new combat management systems
Ottawa (UPI) May 1, 2013 - Lockheed Martin Canada is upgrading New Zealand's ANZAC frigates with its combat management system under a contract worth nearly $197 million.

The naval combat systems integrator said the award covers two ships -- Te Mana and Te Kaha – and is the first international order for its product.

"To have another country select our CMS is tremendously rewarding to our employees and the government of Canada, with whom we've worked for more than three decades on similar naval programs," said Rosemary Chapdelaine, president of Lockheed Martin Canada.

"This key export of Canadian-designed technology not only reinforces Lockheed Martin's position as a world leader in naval combat systems integration but further demonstrates our ability to successfully leverage purchases and investments in high-technology defense products to create jobs and economic growth in Canada, one of the key objectives set forth in the recently launched Defense Procurement Strategy in Canada."

Under the award, Lockheed Martin Canada will also be responsible for the design, installation and integration of the CMS and Combat System Trainer for the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland.

The company's combat management system to be supplied is a commercial variant of systems developed for the Royal Canadian Navy. It leverages utilizes an open architecture concept to give users maximum flexibility to incorporate individual sub-systems and components.