May Gurney has posted promising financial results this morning as it enjoyed a 22 per cent rise in revenues and an underlying pre-tax profit of £28.4m.
The infrastructure services group posted an increase of 17 per cent in underlying profit before tax on revenues of £695.3 million for the year ended March 31 2012, which were up from £571.4 million in 2011, while margins held steady at 4.3 per cent. EBITA was up 20 per cent to £30.1 million.
The bidding teams at the firm enjoyed a busy year as its order book stood at £1.5 billion with more than £400 million in new contracts and extensions secured in the year. The company estimates that there are potential contract extensions worth a further £1.1 billion, while there is a £4 billion pipeline of bidding opportunities in core markets.
The company has completed its reorganisation of operations, aligning services more closely to clients, and consolidating into two client-facing divisions – Public Sector Services & Regulated Sector Services.
It also says that its Regulated Sector Services had a strong year, notwithstanding a small number of under-performing projects in Scotland which have been discontinued, and performed particularly well in the utilities mechanical & electrical (M&E) and repair & maintenance (R&M) sectors.
Commenting on the results, Philip Fellowes-Prynne, chief executive of May Gurney, said:
"May Gurney has delivered a strong financial performance, with continued year-on-year growth and healthy cash generation.
"Our strategy of targeting resilient, maintenance-focused revenue streams has proved successful against the background of a challenging economic environment. Whilst we continue to bid intelligently, our approach has always been to pursue value over volume, especially as our markets become increasingly competitive. Therefore, we remain selective and focus on profitable work where added value, service innovation, collaborative working and customer service are the primary drivers.
"We are confident given the start to the new financial year that our deep long-term client and community relationships, diverse portfolio of integrated essential services, strong order book and substantial bidding pipeline will ensure continued growth and success."