Profits leap at GVA
COMMERCIAL property agent GVA has seen a major jump in profit.
In its financial results for the year ending April 2013, the business, which has an office in Leeds, said turnover for the year delivered a pre-tax profit of £7.8m, £7.7m up on the previous year as it saw the benefit of the previous year’s shareholder debt for equity swap.
GVA further reduced its bank debt by £9.4m during the year to £7m, ensuring a strong balance sheet. The company remains on course to fulfil the pledge it set out 12 months ago of becoming a debt-free company within 12 months from now.
It reported total turnover for the overall business of £147.3m, up from £140.4m on the previous year, and the company said it performed well under “challenging trading conditions”.
GVA said the year-on-year growth allowed the business to increase its bonus pool awards to £9.9m. This reflected a desire to distribute 45% of earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation to high performing staff.
Rob Bould, chief executive at GVA, said: “These results reflect a robust performance that fulfils the goals we set out to meet in April 2012. The success of our company restructure, coupled with our ability to build on that platform throughout last year, have turned GVA into a far safer and stronger proposition.
“We have gained market share, increased fee income and continued to invest in our resilient, advisory-led regional model that differentiates us from other UK commercial property advisors.
“Market sentiment has improved markedly over recent months. We don’t see trading conditions improving significantly until well into 2014, but positive sentiment built on hard evidence that better times lay ahead means now is an important period in which to invest in ones existing assets. With this in mind, GVA is entering another period of growth owed largely to last year’s robust performance. Business acquisitions are back on the agenda, and we’re already hiring a string of high level directors to not only lead the areas we believe carry the most potential as the market evolves, but also to compliment any future acquisitions.”
