Construction group’s profits jump 8% in ‘strong year’
Construction group Kier, which employs more than 300 staff in Yorkshire, has seen full year profit jump 8% after a strong contribution from all its divisions.
In the year to the end of June, underlying pre-tax profit rose to £126m on revenue of £4.27bn, up 5% from the year before.
With offices across the region including in Leeds, Kier is responsible for a number of projects across the county. In partnership with Bruntwood, it completed the construction of 3 Sovereign Square, a development providing more than 93,000 sq ft of grade A office space in the city, that was recently purchased by Leeds City Council.
It is also on site delivering a £30m 360-bed student accommodation development at St Alban’s Place for Select Property Group.
In Sheffield, it is delivering the new £23m Woodside School, which will be able to accommodate 1,200 pupils from nursery to sixth form pupils when complete. It’s also working with the University of Sheffield to deliver a new social sciences hub in the city.
The company’s housing maintenance business has worked in partnership with Sheffield City Council for over 10 years and, in Barnsley, Kier carries out all repairs and maintenance works to 19,000 Barnsley Council homes as part of the Property Repairs and Improvement Partnership (PRIP) with Berneslai Homes Construction Services.
Haydn Mursell, chief executive, said: “Our underlying performance for the year was good. Having simplified our portfolio, the Group is more focused and able to pursue its growth ambitions in our three core markets; building, infrastructure and housing, which now represent 90% of the Group’s revenue and profit. We continue to invest in the business to improve our operational efficiency, providing a robust platform on which to take advantage of the strong long-term fundamentals in these core markets.
“Our Construction and Services order books1 of £9.5bn, together with our c.£2bn property development and residential pipelines, provide good long-term visibility of our future work. This visibility, coupled with our healthy balance sheet, provides us with confidence of achieving our Vision 2020 strategic targets.”
Kier proposed a full-year dividend of 67.5p per share, up 5% from 2016.
